As a leader, delegation is one of the most important things to do. You have to learn how to delegate effectively, what to delegate, how to support someone who you’ve delegated to, and how to hold them accountable. As a recovering perfectionist, I’ve also had to learn how to let go of how I imagine I would do a task if I had infinite time and resources so that I don’t measure success against that.
When I’m trying to decide whether to delegate a task, and what to do if I think the person who I’ve delegated to is having some trouble with it, I ask myself the following questions:
- Does this task need my effort where I would (of course) do it flawlessly, or does it need someone’s effort where if they do it to even half as good as I would have done it, it would be good enough?
- Does this task need to have more people trained up in how to do it?
- Could this task benefit from having someone else do it, who might bring a new perspective or an improvement to it?
- Does the person who I’m delegating to need to grow skills in this area, and this task will help them grow, even if there are growing pains?
- Does someone else or a team need to learn that I’m not the only competent person available to them, so they have to be comfortable with the work output from other people too?
- Do I actually have the time to do it?
- Is this actually the thing that is best for me to be spending my time on? ie, what’s the opportunity cost of me doing this task?
This list helps me be mindful of spending my time in the right place, creating opportunities for others on my team to grow their skills, and right-sizing effort and expertise to a task.