Leveraging Leadership: Effective Delegation

One of the country’s preeminent executive coaches, Marshall Goldsmith, wrote a book with a title that says it all: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. Goldsmith insightfully describes that being in an executive management role is not simply “doing more of the same,” but is really making a step-wise difference in how you behave. Chief among these behavioral changes is moving away from doing things yourself to working through others to magnify your impact. In my work with executives who have successfully made this transition, they make a distinction between delegation as a means of simply getting more work “off of their plates” and delegation as a means of leveraging their particular leadership capabilities through others. This latter means of delegation affords them the mental space they require to think about broader company issues, while also enabling them to be intentional about developing their people. The most successful executives are intentional about simultaneously having a strategic impact regarding succession planning. They know how to increase the influence of their leadership through delegating for development and results. They make a major differentiation between simply redistributing work and using work assignments for growth opportunities. They are intentional about determining who should work on key assignments, who should represent their department on company initiatives, and who is willing to step up as opposed to being content with the status quo. In order to become intentional about successful leadership delegation, there are a couple of key areas to consider:

• Ensuring Quality versus Simply Micro-managing: Executives who have risen in the organization have done so on the basis of their hard work, creativity, and, most importantly, their results. They are consistently competitive with themselves and push themselves to produce high-quality work that also pleases their managers and moves the organization forward. When they move into management ranks, they know they can trust their own work products but do not always trust the work products of others. This need to control is a common remnant of having been rewarded for their work and it creates a natural caution when allowing others to do the work for them. Will the work product be of as high a quality? Will the results be delivered on a timely basis? Will it all get done or will it only be partially completed? This inherent desire to be sure that the work product of their group is equal to what they would have done on their own is a natural, but misguided, tendency. If they do not overcome this tendency, either they will not delegate and end up doing the work themselves, or they will hover over those to whom they have delegated, inadvertently frustrating and undermining their employees. Such managers can create employees who are dependent followers who are unable to think for themselves, or they will experience an exodus of good employees who are more ambitious and creative. They will then wonder why they are left with a team that is only average as opposed to high-performing—a truly self-fulfilling prophecy!
• Empowering versus Benign Neglect: At the other extreme, there are managers who are willing to delegate but unwilling to hold their employees accountable. Recent management theory has encouraged managers to “empower” their employees to work independently on company issues and initiatives. In my work interviewing executives, many are quick to acknowledge that they empower their people, indicating that they trust them. Unfortunately, their interpretation of empowerment often means benign neglect—the manager “throws the work over the fence” and their employees do, or do not do, the work with little or no guidance or oversight. This can also suggest that the manager lacks the discipline to ensure that the work is being completed, preferably in a timely manner and with a high-quality outcome. Employees of managers who are guilty of “empowerment by benign neglect” often complain of lacking direction and experiencing frustration that there is little distinction between good work and mediocre work being done. Employees begin to lose motivation and become subject to poorer productivity and lower morale. The lack of attention to the employees’ work and the lack of differentiation between good and mediocre work are all signs of managers who are too distant from their employees and often reluctant to have difficult conversations to hold employees accountable. Once again, the good and highly motivated employees leave and the mediocre employees stay behind.
• The Leveraged Leader—Delegation as Development: Effective leaders recognize that to delegate effectively they must have a uniform process for all of their employees. Ensuring that the delegated work product will be of high quality, with a satisfactory amount of attention devoted to it, and completed in a timely manner is the sine qua non of delegation. Dr. Gerald Kraines of the Levinson Institute has coined a formula for effective delegation: QQT/R—Quality, Quantity, Timeliness/Resources. For all delegated work, the manager must specify expectations regarding the quality of the work, the amount of work to be completed (e.g., how much analysis is enough) and the expected timeliness of the work product. It is the manager’s responsibility to ensure that the employee has adequate resources to get the work completed. Equally important is that the manager follows up, holds people accountable for their work products and provides rewards, when appropriate. Once these expectations are put in place, managers must have a strong working knowledge of their teams in order to choose wisely to whom they will delegate and, most importantly, why. Delegation can be a tremendous opportunity for employee growth—to stretch an employee, to introduce an employee to a new area of work, or to test the skills of an employee. When managers take a longer-term view of their organizations and are intentional about the development of those on their team, they will be able to multiply their impact in the organization now and in the future. That is the true leverage a manager can have through becoming intentional in delegating work and responsibilities.

Clearly there is a balance between those times when the manager needs to be more involved in order to guarantee that the work is done according to specifications, and those times when the manager can adopt a more laissez-faire attitude. In both cases, the versatile leader will be intentional about the work he or she is delegating, why it is being delegated, to whom it is being delegated, and explicit about expectations (QQT/R). In addition, the leveraged manager will be consistent in holding employees accountable for their work while managing employee development and getting quality results. The ultimate objective is to multiply your impact on the organization through your people. Ask yourself these questions:

1. Do you use delegation as a means to lighten your load or are you intentional about developing your employees through targeted assignments?
2. Are you making the greatest impact in your organization through the development of your people?
3. Are you matching employee needs with employee assignments?
4. Are you applying the correct amount of attention relative to the criticalness of the issue and the capabilities of your employees?
5. Are you seeing unexpected defections of key employees for opportunities elsewhere?
6. Are you seeing more people request positions in your organization than you have openings (a sign that you are a leader who promotes employee development)?
7. Are employees in your organization being sought out to participate in key assignments (a sign that they are being developed)?
8. Are you devoting the time that you have gained through delegating to higher-level issues?