Delegating Disaster: Uncovering Barriers
Delegating hinges on the way you see yourself.
Leadership is about people. First, it’s about you. Then it’s about others. Finally, it’s about getting stuff done.
Barriers To Delegating:
#1. Fear:
Delegating is entrusting. When fear drives you, delegating feels stupid.
Bob Chapman said, “Trust is given, not earned.” Trust enables people to rise. Extend trust with accountability. Never delegate to novices when failure is catastrophic.
#2. Helping:
Compassion goes wrong when you do people’s jobs for them. You hired the wrong people when they consistently fall short.
You teach people to depend on you instead of each other when your first response is doing something for people.
Leaders who help too quickly are despised by the people they help. We resent those who treat us like we’re incompetent.
You never bring out someone’s best when you suggest they are inadequate.
- Don’t help too quickly.
- Don’t help too much.
- Don’t help too long.
#3. Guilt:
It’s troubling to delegate when you can’t put weight on people. Focus on their aspirations, not your guilt.
Put weight on people so they can shine. People enjoy stepping up when it serves their aspirations.
Don’t guess about people’s workload. Say, “I’d like to discuss a new responsibility for you.” Ask, “On a scale of 1:10 how’s your stress level?”
The second question is more powerful than the first. After they give you a number, ask, “What level of stress brings out your best?”
Never feel guilty about giving opportunities for others to shine.
#4. Skill:
Promotions are earned when you do the job better than others. Your team seems less competent than you. (The higher you go the less true this is.)
Delegating is about learning and growth. Give people a chance to hone their skills. Make room for failure that leads to improvement.
What makes delegating hard for leaders?
What added barriers to delegating do you see in yourself? In others?
Still curious:
7 Things Successful Leaders Never Delegate
Top 5 Reasons Why Executives Don’t Delegate
Great message today!
Thank you Michael. It was on my mind because I did a webinar with Kevin Eikenberry about it yesterday.
Some managers and leaders can’t let go of their “favorite task” so they never delegate it.
There’s number 5, and it’s true. Thanks, Paul.
Excellent tips Dan! You mentally punched me in gut with “Never feel guilty about giving opportunities for others to shine.” What a unique twist on the whole guilt thing when it comes to delegating. Thank you!
Thanks for your transparency, Jones. The guild-barrier comes up in conversations with the folks I coach.
Paul’s comment above really speaks to me. I do have trouble delegating my favorite task. I also have a hard time feeling out of control of the situation. I know it’s for me to work on, but it is still is a challenge. I also like having something I have ownership over, and as a new leader, I am learning to delegate to others. It’s definitely a challenge!
It’s harder when you’re new, SB. Newly promoted leaders often keep parts of their old job and add their new job. They often work themselves into frustration. I wish you well.
Can you expand on this part of your blog? This was a a very good blog
Promotions are earned when you do the job better than others. Your team seems less competent than you. (The higher you go the less true this is.)
Thanks for your question, Rich. Promotions are typically earned by doing a good job and standing out among coworkers. For example, the best engineer is often promoted because of their superior knowledge and performance.
However, in highly political organizations, promotions may rely more on influence than performance, sometimes resulting in less competent people advancing. Generally, though, promotions reward results, signaling that the person is highly skilled and hardworking—the best on the team.
As leaders move higher up, they’re more likely to lead subject-matter experts who know more about their specific fields than the leader. This shift happens because senior leadership roles have a broad scope. A senior leader may oversee accounting without being an accountant or manage maintenance without hands-on experience in it.
You have my best
Greetings Mr. Rockwell,
I know I must be missing something from your intended message, so I apologize for what I assume is interpreting your comments incorrectly. But as a leader and teacher of leadership (including at the master’s degree level), I would never put “me” first in your list of “what leadership is about”. Leadership is only “about” the leader dead last in the list of things leadership is about. Instead, it is first about others (those one is leading), then about a getting things done, and then about growth of those one is leading and then a score of other things before it’s about “me” as the leader. In my opinion, at least (for what that’s worth…not much).
Kind regards,
Barry
Thanks for jumping in, Barry. I wasn’t clear. The me first side of leadership involves self-awareness, seeing our strengths and weaknesses. The entire post is about what’s on the inside of a leader. We have to deal with our own personal issues in order to lead well.
The reason leaders take care of their own issues and development is so they can make others a priority. It’s a bit of a conundrum. But when leaders are control freaks, they have to deal with it to thrive.
In order to serve others, leaders must develop themselves, grow out of destructive attitudes, and see their own strengths and weaknesses. Their growth and development is a priority because they influence others. At least that’s how I see it.
I’m delighted you shared your thoughts.
Thanks for making the time to reply, Mr. Rockwell. I get your intent now.
Kind regards,
Barry
I love the entire Guilt section, but what especially spoke to me today was to ask about their stress level and follow up with what is a productive level for them. I will definitely be using this for the future!
I’m glad you saw that, Terri. Sometimes leaders speculate about the stress levels of their team members. The question is, “What makes you say they are over-stressed?”
Caution should be used when exploring this area because in our culture being stressed is a badge of honor. People might say they are stressed out because that’s culturally desired. Another way to explore this is to ask,
“What are you doing that energizes you? How can we get you doing more of that?”
Stress free work is boring. Too much stress lowers performance. People don’t rise to easy tasks. They rise to challenges. Of course there is the issue of too much challenge. You don’t want to burnout people. You want to provide energizing challenges.
When you challenge discuss support. “How can I be helpful as you take on this new challenge?” “What would make this new challenge energizing?”
Cheers
I just read Anne-Laure Le Cunff over at Ness Labs about over-functioning, the sister to not delegating.
“Overfunctioning refers to feeling overly responsible for family, friends, and coworkers, which leads to trying to proactively solve problems and taking on too many tasks, even if the other person is perfectly capable of doing those tasks themselves. For some of us, it’s a way to manage our anxiety.”
I’m in an over-functioning phase at work. A big project is in progress. Pieces are falling into place. We’re delivering on time. I’m like an octopus playing an orchestra. It feels great.
Combined with your email and a cold, it’s possible the universe is trying to tell me something. Hmmm.
Some managers (ooh, and I wouldn’t know from experience…) feel at times that ‘just doing it myself’ will be faster and with expected results…
Trusting others to do it right. That’s the hurdle.
“Trust is given, not earned.” What a great line. I heard this first from Craig Groeschel in his podcast. I would love to hear your thoughts on what this means because I often have to explain it because so many people misunderstand it.
To me delegating shows the person respect and trust that they can do the job. It may take them longer at first and you may have to be involved a bit more but in the end it can give a sense of pride to the person and bit of relief to you. Also, it probably took you longer to do the job at first. It also helps the person gain confidence and the next thing they get will be easier. As a leader, I feel my job is to grow my reports in their job. It’s kind of like you have to spend money to make money…well you have to spend the time to save some time too.