Effective delegation is a key skill for any decent leader. Even if things go sideways, choosing to entrust your team with tasks, decisions, and authority is always a noble move—that is, so long as they have the wherewithal, mindset, resources, authority, autonomy, and guidance to prevail. Few leadership practices will hone your skills quite like responsible delegation.
Here’s a newsflash for you! I’m smart but no genius—not in any way. That’s why I’ve always valued my team members’ individual perspectives, fresh ideas, unique approaches, and solid efforts. Relying on their expertise and abilities ensured superior results as I set them up for success.
But delegation can be a sticky subject for some bosses. They know they should do it, but they just don’t know how or what’s truly at stake. Sometimes they delegate just fine only to lose their resolve and pull the plug.
When I was a university dean overseeing a school, I had a confrontation with my boss that told me exactly the kind of manager he chose to be. He had tasked my fellow deans and me with establishing new faculty mentoring programs within our respective schools. Our systems each had to perform the same functions, but we had full autonomy to tailor programs to our separate school cultures and needs. In other words, he delegated. Good for him.
I saw his directive as a great opportunity for faculty growth, and since one of my younger, up-and-coming faculty members was very excited at the prospect of working on the project, I put him in charge of the design committee supported by my mentorship. In other words, I delegated the delegation.
Right off the bat, the design committee nixed any notion of faculty mentors formally assessing their mentees on the basis that the mindset of a mentor is entirely different from that of an evaluator. My boss said he loved our approach and the fact that I was developing new leadership talent within my school by empowering this rising star. The faculty committee worked quickly to develop their innovative mentoring model, and we made sure they had the full consensus of the school behind them.
Then, as we were completing what was shaping up to be an elegant and workable system design, my boss just changed his mind—180 degrees. It turned out his favorite dean was just as gung-ho about merging mentoring with evaluation as we were about keeping these entirely separate functions entirely separate. So, as he often did when he realized there was an opportunity to buff-shine his favorite’s reputation, my boss had one of his patented abrupt changes of heart. (This, by the way, is par for the course with an autocratic boss. They are easily swayed by manipulative favorites and change their minds on a whim.)
Suddenly I found myself in a familiar role, pushing back against this unreasonable boss's unreasonable new demand that we conform to a model we had already rejected as illogical and dysfunctional.
I learned about his whiplash reversal when he called me into his office to chew me out for having done exactly what he had told me to do. His new stance made no sense at all: he claimed to be granting my school complete autonomy for creating our new program so long as it conformed precisely with the design his favorite dean produced. The cognitive dissonance was palpable.
Sometimes you smell a rat, and sometimes a big fat rat just lands in your lap. I don’t like rats, so I pushed back just on principle at this point. It was not my best performance, but what a disappointment to have all our work chucked out just so that he could tout his favorite’s program as a university-wide model. Later, he even got his boss, the university president, to publicly praise the favorite’s leadership on this project! For my part, during that fateful meeting, all I wanted was for my boss to drop the charade and just give me the direct order to adopt his pet's problematic program. I would not go gentle.
Unable to get me to just give in, he abandoned what little reason he’d retained and replaced it with yelling—one of his classic tells.
Raising his voice was what he did whenever he couldn’t square his abhorrent behavior with his espoused values. I’ll admit, I always kind of relished these displays of impotence. As unpleasant as it could be, there is nothing like watching an ignorant beast thrash around a cage of its own construction.
As our dispute hit its climax, instead of him breaking me, my unwise and maybe even puerile stubbornness finally cracked his resolve. You could almost hear it snap. His temper rose, and his voice grew hoarse as he screamed, “You’re just a bad leader!”
"Why?" I asked flatly.
His nostrils flared as he went in for the kill: “Because you put someone else in charge of this project instead of doing yourself!”
Let’s just take a little pause here to let that absurd accusation linger in the air a bit—the way it seemed to that tense morning in my boss’s office. As heated as things had become, an instantaneous, bone-numbing chill set in. Time froze. It felt like I could calmly stand up, stroll out of his office, saunter over to the cafeteria for a leisurely coffee, and return before that asinine accusation ever settled to earth. Worse still for him, he had already overplayed his hand. He had hit the limit of both his lung capacity and the rickety, out-of-control whirligig that he called logic.
I knew, of course, I could never actually win since he was the boss, but I wanted to make him squirm a bit. He liked to play the good boss, and this was just one more time he threw that out to serve his pet dean.
Timing it perfectly, I pointed a finger skyward and raised my own voice for the first time, almost shouting, “Wait!”
He slumped back, spent.
“Did you just call me a bad leader because”—I paused for a good beat and a half here—“I delegated?” I probably flashed a wry smiled too.
He blinked blankly a few times as more cognitive dissonance flooded his brain. He was a lousy boss and an even worse leader, but he understood the value of delegation, at least in theory. By now, he was desperately grasping at straws as he drowned in the rising tide of his own disconnect.
Worse for him, he was all yelled out. I paused again, then calmly said, “So if you just want me to just do it your way instead of the way my faculty decided, the way you already approved, just say so.” I had given him an exit, just one, a bad one.
He took it. “Yes,” he replied, emboldened at the sweet relief of his dissonance finally resolving. “That’s exactly what I expect!” His bravado was short lived as he realized what he had just admitted.
“Okay,” I said evenly with a little shrug of the shoulders. “Then that’s what we’ll do. No problem.” He looked crushed that he had failed to pin his own leadership shortcomings on me. I then changed the subject by asking what else he had on our meeting agenda.
I share this silly tale not because it was so momentous or because I am particularly proud of my own behavior—I’m not. But I want you to reflect on my boss's statement about delegation. He’d be right if I’d simply assigned the task to my young faculty lead without any close mentoring—in other words, if I dumped my work on him. That would be dereliction. But in his desperation to break me, my boss resorted to attacking the very concept of delegation itself. It’s absurd, yet so many bosses default to the notion that delegation is a mark of weakness destined to fail. “I can’t trust anyone to do it right.” That sort of logic is a hallmark of a terrible boss.
Equally terrible bossing is dumping work on others without providing help or conveying real authority. In other words, giving someone responsibility without empowering them to execute. Worse still is doing what my boss did, pretending to delegate but then taking full control after the work is largely done for no good reason.
As for the ill-conceived and overwrought mentoring system he strong-armed us into adopting, it was the dud we had imagined for precisely the reasons we had surmised. We ended up just working around it.
The takeaway from my little tale? Although I was forced to abandon the innovative and functional system my faculty had designed, my young faculty lead still gained invaluable real-world leadership experience that would pay dividends. He emerged with the respect of his colleagues as well. Furthermore, the entire school could still take pride in the rejected initiative we'd built together, which only enhanced our mutual trust. We grew as a team by persevering through this shared challenge. Even when the process ain’t pretty, such is the power of delegation backed by integrity.
How regularly do you delegate? How effective is your delegation at getting the job done, developing leaders, and building your team?
Great leaders need to understand the power and the methods of effective delegation, and I can help.
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𝙅𝙞𝙢 𝙎𝙖𝙡𝙫𝙪𝙘𝙘𝙞, 𝙋𝙝.𝘿., 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳, 𝘬𝘦𝘺𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘦 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘳, 𝘤𝘰𝘢𝘤𝘩, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵. 𝘏𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘦𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘳 30 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘌𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘳, 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘯, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘎𝘶𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘎𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘶𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴. 𝘏𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘛𝘪𝘯𝘺 𝘏𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘢𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘛𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘎𝘭𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘴 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱 𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘷𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘜𝘯𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘐𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘊𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘦𝘴. 𝘊𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘵𝘰 𝘑𝘪𝘮’𝘴 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱 𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘴 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘨𝘶𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘻𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴.
How to Delegate as though Your Work Workplace Depended on It