Transitions between roles or positions often pass through a stage when you are doing some of your old work and some of the new work. Because the activities and responsibilities are so different, this near doubling of the workload is particularly recognizable for those transitioning from an individual contributor role to a manager role.
Therefore, discussions on time and workload management are often one of the first topics in my transition coaching experience. Learning to delegate is often an outcome. Delegation is more than simply telling or asking someone to do something you would normally do. If that was all, then we really wouldn’t struggle with delegation. Let’s take a look at several aspects of what underlies the difficulty of delegation.
Giving up control. A barrier to delegation occurs when we perceive delegation as giving up on responsibility, accountability, and control. Delegating an activity to someone else means that it was an activity for which you had the original full responsibility to complete but now someone will be holding you accountable if it doesn’t get done. Giving up control means there is a potential that it will not get done. However, given your current workload, it’s more likely to get done if you delegate it. However, it will likely be done differently than you would do it.
Losing your identity. When we are very good at something or have been doing it for a long time, it becomes part of our identity. Delegating an activity that is part of our personal identity feels like giving up part of ourselves. This can feel threatening, and is perhaps the largest internal barrier for not delegating.
Perception by others. Even further from being correct, is the external barrier of believing others will view delegation negatively — that you have “given up” your responsibility, accountability, control or identity with a particular activity. Or believing, “They will think I am lazy”. In my experience, your supervisor or peers will not care who does the work as long as it gets done. Do you really believe that we are supposed to continue doing what we have always done and do new work too?
Everyone is busy. When it comes to fellow team members or direct reports to whom you would delegate, we often choose not to delegate because we believe that others are as overloaded as we are. Therefore, it wouldn’t be appropriate to give them more work. They may be overloaded, but if you are willing to delegate to them, they will be more willing to delegate some of their work to someone else. If they don’t have this option, it is important for you to help them prioritize their work in order to take on the new tasks you are delegating. Worse yet, they may be overloaded and bored with their current workload. Likely, they would love to do something new and more challenging. Your ability to delegate is a growth opportunity for someone else.
It takes too much time. For some, delegation feels like more work. How many times have you said, “It would be easier to do it myself”? It only feels like more work because the work that comes with delegating is new work. It’s new work to judge what is appropriate to delegate; to teach someone to do the activity; to clearly communicate your expectations like timelines and quality; and following up to make sure the work was done. In truth, the new work resulting from delegation will collectively still take less time than actually doing the work yourself. The return on investment increases with each time that you do not have to do the activity yourself. You only need to judge once, maybe teach twice, and eventually, you won’t need to follow up once they own the work.
Loss of advantage. The lack of ability to delegate can be a career limitation. When we don’t teach others how to do our job, we become indispensable. That’s great, until your skills or role are no longer needed. Being irreplaceable also means you are likely to be passed over for new opportunities, because “no one else can do that job”. More subtly, if you are overloaded doing the equivalent of your old job and your new job, you just aren’t doing any of them well.
Delegation serves the purpose of lightening your workload so that you can do the things that only you can do and should do. When we don’t delegate, we are holding ourselves and others back from filling our potential. If we fail to delegate we are simply not doing our job.
Want to read more columns from Jonathan? Check out:
Resiliency Helps You Weather the Storm and Grow
Leadership Transitions — It’s Emotional
