63 - How to Delegate Effectively (and Why it Matters for Leaders)

Hi, welcome to Strategy, Leadership, and Impact with your host, Blake Reapheim. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Strategy, Leadership, and Impact. I hope you've been well since the last time you've tuned in, whether that be watching or listening, depending on where you follow me.

I have a big announcement. I will be launching the Compass and Summit Leadership Institute in the very near future. And what that is, that's a platform that will allow me to offer various online leadership development courses, but also another conduit in which you can contact me if you'd like me to do something like a presentation, keynote speech, but also set up workshops and things like that for your organization on leadership. I have a full list of it, but also to be able to engage myself in one-on-one leadership coaching and mentoring through that platform.

and also developing some other face-to-face courses as well. And they'll all be around a theme of a course compass, which is the direction in which we take that's leading us with our values. And then the summit that's around the achievement bit. But more to come on that.

I might do a whole episode just on what that is and what it looks like. The Strategy, Leadership, and Impact podcast will stay. It'll stay branded, the Strategy, Leadership, and Impact podcast. The look of it might, just the branding, to match more of the Compass and Summit Leadership Institute.

but the Strategy, Leadership, and Impact podcast will become part of the Compass and Summit Leadership Institute. So I'm very excited about that. That'll be the hard launch that I'm doing that I've been talking about. That'll be hard launch on October 16th and soft launch now.

So slowly working through this, getting it all together, more to come on that. But just keep your eyes out. You're definitely going to be seeing a lot more about it. But I guess without further ado, without talking much more about stuff, I want to get into this week's episode.

And this one, the idea for this has come from a number of people who have asked me about delegation. How do I delegate? Where do I start? What do I do?

How do I actually give up control? And various topics like that. But delegation seems to come up all the time. And sometimes it's seen as a very administrative type task or managerial type task, but it's actually a leadership task.

And we'll talk about that because it is actually one of the most misunderstood skills in leadership that we should all be able to do and actually do quite well. So but let me ask you this. Have you ever felt like you're carrying the entire weight of your team or your organization on your shoulders? Like if you don't personally check every detail, nothing will get done right.

And I think every leader has been there. But the truth is, if you're not delegating, you're not leading. You're just working harder than everybody else. And why would you do that?

Why would you have a team if you have to work harder than them? So just ask yourself that. So in this episode, I want to explore why delegation is so critical, how to do it effectively, in the key leadership truth that you can delegate authority, but never responsibility. So first, let's start with the why.

And I'll give you a couple reasons why. So the first reason why we should delegate is freeing yourself for higher level work. Your job as a leader isn't to do everything it to focus on what only you can do which is setting the vision making strategic decisions guiding the culture And if you buried in spreadsheets and micromanaging tasks you robbing your team and your organization of your leadership So second reason why you should delegate is to develop your people. Delegation isn't about lightening your load.

It's about creating opportunities for your team to grow. And if you hand someone a challenging project saying, I believe in you. So first of all, that builds their confidence and also builds their skills as they go through that project and it prepares them for future leadership roles. And a third reason why you should delegate is you're building trust and culture.

Every time you delegate well, you show your team you trust them and trust is contagious. It encourages things like loyalty, ownership and a stronger team culture. And the fourth reason why you should delegate is preventing burnout. Many leaders think that they're being responsible by keeping everything on their plate.

But in reality, you're burning yourself out and you're slowing the organization down. But if you're the bottleneck and you're not protecting the team, you're holding them back. So delegation isn't optional. It's a leadership requirement.

So next, let's talk about some barriers to delegation. And if delegation is so powerful, why don't leaders do it more? So there's a few common barriers that I'll talk about. The first one, I've heard a number of people say that's particularly whenever I ask them, why don't you delegate?

What's your biggest barrier to it? And they say, it's faster if I just do it myself. And this is probably the number one excuse I've heard. So yes, it may be faster in the short term, but think long term.

If you never teach your team, you'll be doing the task forever. So just think about that. So in the long term, they need to learn how to do it. There's going to be a period of growth there.

It might be a little bit slower at first. It might seem inefficient, but do it. Let them learn how to do it. And eventually they'll take over that task and they'll take it off your plate.

Another reason why here is fear of losing control. And leaders often think, if I don't handle this, it might go off the rails. That's not leadership. That's insecurity.

And that's where you start actually micromanaging. And then another reason why people have a barrier to delegation is perfectionism. Some leaders can't let go because they believe that no one can do it as well as they can or no one can do it to their standard. And this mindset stifles growth.

First of all, whenever you hire people to be on a team, you want people that are better than you at their jobs or smarter than you. So, yes, they're probably going to be able to do it better than you can. And if you have a belief that no one on your team can do it as well as you or as good as you, you've probably hired the wrong team. Maybe you need to look at that or maybe you look at upskilling them so that they can do it as well as you can or at least meet your standard.

And then another reason why or another barrier to delegation is people just don't know how to delegate. Sometimes it's fear. Sometimes it's a lack of skill. Sometimes it's there's no one there to delegate to.

But delegation is something you have to learn as well as a leader. But first, recognizing these barriers is the first step to overcoming them. So we've talked about why. We've talked about some barriers.

Now let's talk about the how. So delegation isn't about just dumping tasks on people. It about being intentional in how we empower them to do things So I going to give you a few practical steps that you can use in order to delegate The first one is match the task to the person. It might not be necessarily that they had the skills, but you need to think about your team's skills, their strengths, but also you need to think about their development needs.

And if someone's detail-oriented, for example, maybe they're the right person for an analytical project. If someone needs more leadership experience, maybe they should run the next presentation that your organization has to give. But think about where they're inexperienced, but also think about where their skills and strengths are and try to build on that and build that experience. That's one of the ways you're going to grow the team.

Another thing you need to do whenever you delegate is be clear about the expectations. Define the what and the why. So what are they doing and why are they doing it? too often leaders delegate with a very vague statement like, can you take care of this for me?

Can you just do this? That's not delegation. That's dumping a task on someone, but that's also setting someone up to fail. Instead, explain the outcome you're after and why it matters.

So give them the reason why, give them what you're looking for. And then another thing you can do is provide the right authority and resources. So delegating without giving someone the tools or the decision-making power is frustrating. You give them something to do and then you actually don't give them the parameters or the resources and able to do it.

You're just going to frustrate them and they're not going to get it done. So, and it's the same, you know, like drive this car, but not giving them the keys. Why would you do that? How are they going to drive the car?

They're just going to sit there and look at it. So authority doesn't mean unlimited power either. It means enough autonomy to progress without running back to you for every little approval. And sometimes you might tell them, but they're unsure.

So every time they do come back for approval for something that you've given them the authority to do, you might just have to reinforce that until they stop doing it. And another thing you can do is set milestones and check-ins. So this is the balance between micromanaging and disappearing. I've been guilty of this before.

I've delegated something to somebody. They disappear. They got it. They're capable.

I'm away. And also, too, sometimes you can be a bit overbearing, too, or that micromanaging where you're making sure they do everything right. You've got to find that balance between the two. So you don't want to be the hover boss.

And you also don't want to be someone who just throws them in the deep end with no lifeline whatsoever. However, yes, I've thrown people in the deep end before, but usually I'm standing on the side of the proverbial pool watching them. And when I start seeing them struggle, I'm in there with them to help them out until they're not struggling anymore. They learn how to swim.

And you can agree on some checkpoints throughout, whatever that might be. So you can say to them, let's touch base when you're halfway done with a halfway marker on this date or send me a quick update every Friday, for example, or something like that. But having those regular check-ins, you can make sure everything's on track the way you want it to be or the way you're expecting it to be. And then the fifth thing is trust, then verify.

It's kind of like that old saying, inspect what you expect. That phrase is key. So trust your people to do the job. Have a system to verify progress.

That's just accountability. Yes I talked about accountability a lot and accountability can be uncomfortable but accountability is necessary And another thing you can do is recognize and credit When someone completes a delegated task well, don't just quietly check it off your list. You need to celebrate that with them. Publicly give them credit.

That reinforces that positive behavior and it motivates the team and it motivates them to do a good job next time. And I'll guarantee if you practice these consistently, delegation will become a strength of yours instead of a struggle. Now let's tackle one of the biggest misconceptions about delegation. I've heard this time and again.

And this is the idea that if you hand something off to someone, you're no longer accountable. That's not true. Because the reality is you can delegate authority, but not responsibility. Authority is a power to make decisions and take action.

Responsibility is ownership of the outcomes. So as a leader, you might say, I'm delegating this project to whoever. They have authority to run it, make calls, manage the team, whatever. But if the project fails spectacularly or anyway, you can't turn around and say, well, that's their problem.

They did it. It's still on you. You're still responsible. And this principle protects teams from leaders who otherwise abdicate that responsibility.

And they do blame others, even though it's probably their failure. Delegation isn't abdication. It's empowerment with accountability. So think of it like this.

Imagine you're the captain of a ship. You delegate the navigation to your first officer, the engines to your engineer, the crew management to your chief mate. But if the ship crashes, the captain can't say, well, I delegated this or that, and this is the reason why. The captain still answers for the outcome.

And the organization that you're running, you're the captain of that, and that organization is your ship. So the balanced leaders need to strike. So give your people the freedom to act, but always own the responsibility yourself. So let's bring this home.

Delegation isn't about efficiency. It's about leadership maturity. When you delegate well, you free yourself to focus on the bigger picture. You develop and empower your team.

You build a culture of trust and prevent burnout for you and for them. But remember, delegating doesn't mean walking away. You can delegate authority, but the responsibility is always yours. So here's my challenge for you this week.

Look at your workload, identify one task you're holding on to that you shouldn't be, and ask yourself, who on my team could do this and grow because of it? Then delegate it clearly and intentionally. Leadership is not about doing more, it's about enabling more. And when you delegate, you multiply your impact.

So thanks for listening to this episode. And if it resonated with you, I encourage you to share it with someone who's struggling with delegation or leave a review so more leaders can find it. And don't forget, you can also subscribe to Strategy, Leadership and Impact on my YouTube channel or podcast on whatever platform you like to listen to. And until next time, take care.

We'll talk again soon. Thank you.