Delegation
I recently returned from the EARCOS Leadership Conference, which was an amazing learning experience. My mind is still trying to process everything I learned and how to follow up on all the great connections I made.
One immediate take away, though, of the 3 presentations I delivered, Delegation was the most popular, by far. It was Day 3 of a 3 Day conference and the room was packed and buzzing with interaction. And rightly so, as this is the time of year when leaders should be delegating more.
Over the past two months I have written about Responsibility, Accountability and Ownership, Collaborative Communication and Asking More Questions and Setting Less Goals. My monthly newsletters are intended to be scaffolded over the year to address the topics that Middle Leaders should be facing at the time I post my articles. If you are a leader, you need to start delegating!
There were two ideas that really captured my audience’s attention. First, I asked participants to reflect on how much time they spent doing individual contributor tasks and how much time they spent leading. Individual contributor tasks are the things that they do alone and leadership tasks involve others. I asked them to complete the line in the image to the right to show the proportion of time spent attending to both types of tasks.
This first provocation caused many to realize they needed to draw a better distinction between their individual responsibilities and the responsibilities of being a leader. Some tasks for each role were easy to categorize, but some could not be distinguished. This latter realization then surfaced the insight that the line actually is more like a pendulum that swings depending on the time of year and demands placed on the team.
This uncertainty of the swinging pendulum, and sheer volume of work that teams must do, is what typically drives leaders to use delegation as a tool for time management and ensuring equity in terms of work load. Unfortunately, when delegation is done for this purpose, it is often perceived as dumping, which breeds animosity and undermines transformative collaboration.
The second idea that stirred the audience’s imagination, provoked by the sharing of 3 cases, was that delegation should be a tool for developing capacity and when done effectively, increases accountability and ownership for team performance. Too many participants came into the presentation wanting to better understand how to ensure greater equity in terms of task and time management.
Spoiler alert, this is a leadership conference, a primary responsibility of a leader is to develop leaders.
Delegation, when planned properly, develops team members capacity and capabilities to take on more responsibilities, assume accountability and instills a sense of ownership for the outcome. This type of delegation requires you spending more time leading, which means for teacher leaders, that must balance a full load of teaching responsibilities, you need to delegate selectively:
Decide the delegation: What is the purpose for delegating and how will it benefit the team?
Assign the delegation: Who has the capacity and capabilities for the task? How does this task align with their development objectives?
Plan the delegation: How much detail and authority does the team member need?
Communicate the delegation: Do you need to tell, sell or ask the team member?
Supervise the delegation: How often should you check in? How will you debrief and celebrate with the team member?
If you would like to delve into these 5-Steps for Effective Delegation more deeply, then sign up for a free online Delegation self-study course. This 2-hour asynchronous online course is free for my newsletter subscribers. The subscription will expire after 30-days, which should be ample time to improve your delegation skills.
