Delegating is hard
I have this hard-earned insight that has taken me far too much time to figure out. No matter how hard they try, my team can’t read my mind.
Delegating doesn’t seem that hard. You assign a task, and it comes back to you exactly how you imagined it. No notes. Perfect the first time.
But that’s not how it happens, is it? Because my team of creative, independent thinkers seems to want to have their own ideas.
Selfish of them, really.
Here’s what I’ve learned. Delegating takes hard work, proactive thinking and intentional effort. It’s not just assigning a task to someone. It’s having the time and space to clearly communicate direction. And it’s having the openness to explore new and interesting directions.
At Adverb, we’ve been on a journey to better define our leadership roles. And, out of necessity, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to delegate. Because I want to be better at it. And I want our leadership team to learn how to be better at it as well.
Here’s what’s worked:
Start With Trust
You need to trust that your team will do a great job. I place so much value in the work that I do. Trusting someone else to do it can feel like trusting them with my reputation, my self-worth, my sense of self. I need to be intentional about starting projects from a place of trust. Because my team deserves it.
Give Clear Direction
I need to put my team in a position to succeed. In order to do that, I need to recognize how much of my vision I’ve actually communicated, and how much of it lives in my head. Then, I need to take the time to communicate direction, context and expectations—while leaving enough room for interpretation.
Communicate Openly
Delegation isn’t a single act. I need to be in regular communication with my team. But that communication needs to be balanced. If I overcommunicate, it’s easy to end up micromanaging. But if I undercommunicate, I may miss a chance to course-correct. My best approach is to be vulnerable and open with the team, and create an environment where they can tell me what they need from me, as much as I tell them what I need from them.
Keep An Open Mind
We didn’t hire a team of smart people so that I could tell them exactly what to do. And that means I have to be okay with that pesky fact that my team will have their own ideas. In fact, I have to trust that those ideas will improve my work. I want to create a culture where we know that putting work in front of our peers makes it better. No matter how good an idea, it’ll be better if the team has contributed. That culture starts with me. And I need to live it every day.
Learning to delegate is a journey that every leader has to go through. Great teams don’t want to sit on the sidelines watching leaders work—they want to be part of meaningful, interesting projects. And that means we need to learn to lead, not just do.
It’s hard every time. It’s worth it every time.
And until my team learns to read my mind, I’ll keep practicing.