How to get better at delegation
Even the best leaders struggle with delegation – it’s one of the most common challenges I see in leadership coaching. While it’s tempting to take everything on yourself, it can often lead to burnout and hold back your team’s growth. By handing over tasks to your team, you create opportunities for their development, show trust, and free up your own time to focus on the high-value strategic work that needs your full attention.
But if you’ve been leading for any time, then you likely knew all of this already. And so, the real challenge comes from not knowing ‘why’ delegating is important, but ‘how’ to do it effectively (and consistently!). I find the best way to remember to delegate is to have a system. My favourite comes from Jenny Blake (HBR, 2017). She recommends delegating tasks which are:
Tiny: So small you barely notice them, but they soon add up!
Time-consuming: So big that they fill your time, but they don’t need you involved for the most part. You can just dip in when needed and give the majority of the task to someone else.
Time-sensitive: They might need you, but they can’t have you, because you’re maxed-out and there’s a deadline. Here’s where you need to trust your team and work out how you can be minimally involved.
Tedious: Low-level, simple tasks that don’t need you, as a senior person, involved. Someone else can do that delegate badge printing. A CEO I was coaching recently told me how he’d despaired with a senior leader in his company who’d spent a whole day directing traffic in the customer car park!
Teachable: You can communicate clearly how to do the task.
And finally, ones that you’re Terrible at. Surely, if you’re no good at something and someone else is, it makes sense to let them do it?
Start Delegating Immediately
Remember to explain the tasks you’re delegating clearly to your team member, explaining why you’re asking them, setting any parameters on how and when to do the task, and under which circumstances to check-in. At check-in points and at the end, provide clear, motivating feedback to improve the task performance next time.
Remember to delegate
For leaders who struggle to make delegation a habit, consistency is key. The following actions will help you to remember:
Have the six ‘T’s on a Post-It Note on your monitor, in your notebook, or on your work phone home screen.
Make a diary note to check in every other day on your to-do list to see if anything can be delegated.
Delegate these tasks as quickly as you can after spotting them.
Tell your team that they have universal permission to challenge you, if they see you doing work which they could do, or if they are feeling underworked while you’re looking ridiculously busy.
3 resources to help with delegation:
Jenny Blake’s excellent article on what to delegate: https://hbr.org/2017/07/how-to-decide-which-tasks-to-delegate
A great resource on how to delegate, which I use frequently with leaders at all levels: https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/how-to-delegate-effectively
On the flipside, a post on how team members can deal with a boss that hoards the best work: https://katiebest.com/how-to-deal-with-a-boss-that-hoards-the-best-work/
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