Delegation is the secret for building a healthy business.

Trust the team to succeed without your continuous supervision, unless you want it to stay small…

I have a feeling that a lot of people, myself included, have not learned how to properly delegate. Because that is not what we are being taught at school. Instead, we are always told never to cheat a test.

This has led most of the managers with less team leading experience try to be the judge, jury and executioner of almost every decision. Meaning they burden oneself with lots of to-do items, while letting rest of the team only perform simpler tasks.

This, however, can lead to other players feel less involved and needed, thus perhaps looking to leave much sooner. Even worse, many of the important items might fall back in the schedule, as everything needs to go through one person’s table.

Instead, we should all try to learn to trust other people can perform as good as us. Sometimes even better. Otherwise, why did we employ them in the first place?

Ever since kindergarten, I have always wanted to drive every team, decision and conversation. Mostly believing that running the process leads to faster and better results.

The bad part is that I have not been completely wrong. For example, I never used to form a team in any of the math or physics competitions but in most cases ended up winning.

Yet I understand this kind of mindset cannot go far.

Still in school, I also believed myself to be a brilliant debater, thus doing all the prep work by myself. Just to have the team underperform later on, as they had not learned the context. Which also meant I was not able to perform as good as I hoped to — certainly not becoming the best debater.

Maybe it could have been changed with another team.

Most likely tho, trusting the existing team to do some of the prep work by themselves would have been a better decision.

The same would help any company hoping to build a lasting legacy. Either national or global.

Sometimes it may be true that one person understands the mission ahead a bit better than the rest. Yet this person would for sure not be able to cover all the roles on the maximum level.

But why do we then not share the responsibilities with others?

Due to the fear of missing out an opportunity at hand. Because it may happen that the person who was delegated to do something will not be able to perform good enough. And then the task would have to be delegated again with time already lost. Perhaps the opportunity would even fade.

Yet that is the black scenario! In case we have done good enough job in hiring, we should not be afraid of such things happening. Unless it was always meant to go this way.

However, on average the task would actually get done. Meanwhile, the manager can finish another project or two. And the team grows to become even more of a family.

That said, I encourage everyone, mostly myself, to give more tasks away for other to do. They actually will get it done in a good way!

What is your experience in delegation? Can you perhaps give some tips on how to do it better?

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