The main barrier to delegation is the manager's need to be seen as calling all the shots as having all the answers.
Managers who are poor at delegation worry that things won’t get done properly if they don’t do it themselves. When they try to delegate, they tell people what to do in too much detail or monitor too closely. They have a ready list of excuses: it takes more time to delegate than do it myself, no one is competent enough or we can’t afford to get it wrong.
What is really going on here? One of the major barriers to delegation is the manager's understandable anxiety to do well – this much is clear. Anxiety gets in the way of clear thinking and makes us more reactive than normal. It’s hard to trust others and take risks when we feel pressure to get something right. Because DOING is what got us to where we are in our career, we turn to our comfort zone when we feel stressed.
But we don’t just do tasks. We also monopolize thinking, problem solving and decision making – a mental form of doing. Our identity, being an answer-giver or solution generator, is reinforced by a culture that portrays the manager as someone who knows what to do. The broader picture here is that much of our work today is mental work, using our brains to solve problems and develop creative solutions. This means that even good delegators are only scratching the surface of working through people if they only delegate tasks. More skilled managers know that getting mental work done through people means asking them questions around how they think an issue might be tackled, what they see as the pros and cons of possible options and what steps they need to take to get it done.
Asking questions like these kills a few birds with one stone. The manager gets assurance that the team member has some idea of how to tackle the task to be delegated, thereby minimizing the risk of just letting team members loose to approach the job as they please. Employees feel more engaged and committed because it is their plan. Thirdly, the manager is more fully working through team members because they are solving problems jointly.
Effective delegation is based on appreciating the need to move from being a solution generator to becoming a facilitator, catalyst and coach. They see that they are more likely to succeed as coaches than as sole contributors. The first step to becoming a good delegator is to reframe how you see yourself and your role. Everyone knows they need to stop being the doer, but it is critical to go further and ask facilitative questions to draw more solutions out of others.
