Leaders Who Thrive Can Delegate at 5 Levels

To delegate effectively is a superpower.

When I was in school I remember every time my mom mentioned the amount of housework that was pending, my dad used to tell her half-jokingly to just delegate. (His actual words were:‘ Do, Delegate or Dump!’) This exchange was quite entertaining for us kids, but annoying for my mom! Understandably.

This skills is very critical for leaders though. With the current parallel pandemic of ‘burnout’ going on, delegating better can be the difference between high performance and chronic exhaustion.

Delegation is key for improving your capacity and hence prevents burnout. Research has established that one of the main dimensions of burnout is a sense of ineffectiveness & lack of accomplishment at the job. Learning & practising effective delegation holds the key to accomplish more, being more effective and getting the mind space to reflect - which is key for leaders to thrive!

In this Issue: Mindsets which hold us back | 5 Levels of Delegation | Delegation & collaboration | How-To Guide | Case Study

Why Do We Struggle: Our Mindset

I grew up observing and believing certain things about delegation. For e.g. people often think of it as something which only a senior leader or a boss can do. These beliefs are shaped by our work culture, psychology & our own experience. Have you experienced the below?

• Self-enhancement effect: Our psychological bias to evaluate a work product more highly if we have done it. Hence we hesitate to let go of our authority over the task.

You think that the only way to do it well, is to do it yourself.

• We think it’s faster to do it yourself, and tedious to explain to someone else.

You think its faster to do it yourself.

• We think delegation just means passing off all your work and we are better than that.

We don't want to come across like this guy.

Or the very widely accepted one that delegation is downards, not upwards.

These are all NOT true. Delegation is a mindset.

It’s the way we think. It’s the way we break down a task to optimize it. It’s the way we think of people’s strength and their contributions to a task. It’s an art and there is a method to it: the way we think ‘whole’ rather than ‘what I have to deliver’.

While delegation indeed helps individual wellbeing, capacity & performance, it directly affects the team and organization culture too.

Delegation & Collaboration

At the team level, it’s a clear sign of trust in the team, and hence a critical element of empowerment & collaboration culture.

Teams often complain of a lack of empowerment, which makes collaboration difficult. Basically, this is a code for someone at your higher management level who doesn’t know how to delegate effectively.

Empowerment is nothing but ‘Distributed control’.

Distributed control is nothing but Delegation.

Delegation helps you synergize more, achieve more, bond and collaborate with teams better. In other words, in the new world delegation is an essential collaboration tool. The KEY however, is the ‘level’ of delegation.

5 Levels of Delegation

Most people think of delegation as 0 or 1.

Delegation is CONTEXT DEPENDENT

In reality, like everything else in life, it is more nuanced and context-dependent. See the 5 levels of delegation, which as a leader you need to be comfortable with:

• Level 1: Go and investigate this topic. Come back to me. Discuss with me. I will decide. (Partially delegated the task, the investigation part, however you reserve the right to decide)

• Level 2: Go. Investigate the issue. Find possible solutions. Come back to me. I will decide. (Higher level of delegation because the person needs to come up with the solutions as well)

• Level 3: Go. Investigate the issue. Find possible solutions. Decide what you would like to do and propose. If I don’t say anything, go ahead and do it.

• Level 4: Go. Investigate the issue. Find possible solutions. Decide what you would like to do. Do it. Afterwards, let me know what you did.

• Level 5: Do it end to end. 100%. And you are not required to tell me or discuss with me.

Pinpointing the right level is the key.

We have a tendency to either not delegate, or delegate at level 5. (Guilty!) And that is the reason sometimes we hesitate to delegate or empower others. If we don’t practice delegating at level 1 the team will never be able to grow capable enough for level 5. In turn, we will never find them capable enough to empower them and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As someone once said,

The art of management is the fine balance between being a dictator and an anarchist.

How to Delegate: Tools to Support

1. Identify Level: What level of delegation is needed in this job? Decide based on your availability, priority and criticality of the task.

2. Identify Person: Can this person operate at this level? Match with their expertise, interests and expectations.

3. Communicate with Clarity: This step is so crucial. Err on the side of overcommunication. Make it perfectly clear what they can decide and what they cannot.

When you explain, ensure you do the below.

• Explain your reason, how this task fits in with their role/ interest/ aspiration/ contribution to goals and so on.

• Clarify their contribution and clarify the decisions they can make

• Provide any instructions/ training required

• Check for feedback, help needed

• Thank them once they complete the job

Monitor, evaluate & iterate on this to get better.

A couple of resources which I found helpful:

• A case study of Anika shared in Harvard Business Review: How she transformed her mindset of being the person who ‘gets the job done’ (reached the brink of burnout & low performance) to ‘leading people, priorities, projects in that order’ which helped her thrive.
  

• Self Reflection

If you are struggling with optimizing your delegation skills, the below questions will help you get started:

• When & Where do you usually struggle with delegation? Why? What does it tell you about your beliefs?

• What are the highest-valued contributions that you’re most skilled at making in your team?

• What is the highest valued contribution your team can make?

• Given this, what do you need to be intimately involved with and what can you delegate?

• At what level do you need to delegate these tasks? And to who?

Plan accordingly and give yourself time to hone the #TheArtOfDelegation over some time.

Until next time,

Keep Thriving!