Delegate to Enhance Your Leadership
As an executive and leadership coach, I have a unique window that allows me to see into the working world and personal lives of many leaders. I get to hear about and applaud their successes and to listen to and understand their struggles. Helping leaders turn their struggles into triumphs is why I became a coach, and it continues to motivate me with each coaching engagement.
A frequently mentioned challenge is having an excessive workload and insufficient time to complete it. This is especially common when leaders take on a new project, get promoted to a new level or start with a new employer. They achieved this new opportunity based on their track record of success and they want to demonstrate their ability to do whatever it takes to be successful.
Many leaders in these new assignments turn to the habits that got them to this next opportunity. They double down on their areas of expertise and take on too much themselves, want things done in the ways that previously worked for them, or expect others to follow their lead without providing their new team with a proper vision or roadmap.
“What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” – Marshall Goldsmith
When this happens, leaders can become overwhelmed with work, lose sight of any work-life balance, and be seen as micro-managing without developing their staff. Too often these leaders claim that it’s quicker for them to do the work themselves; that they know it will be done right if they do it; and they don’t have time to train or develop others. Left unaddressed, these excuses impede the new leader’s effectiveness — or worse, demonstrate that the leader was the wrong person to be placed into the position.
Like learning most new skills, learning to delegate often depends on developing three critical attributes:
- Awareness of the need to improve or grow in a specific area.
- Desire to get better or advance in that area.
- Dedication to work and explore new methods to uplevel abilities or performance.
This is where an executive coach can be of great benefit to leaders and their teams. Using data and examples culled from assessment tools and stakeholder or 360 interviews, a coach can present valuable feedback to the leader. This kind of feedback encourages awareness of the strengths the leader wants to keep or amplify, as well as one or two areas to develop further. When leaders become aware that their self-assessments may be incongruent with how others see them, a desire to improve is usually ignited.
Once awareness and desire to improve are established, coaches partner with leaders to set specific goals, with actions and timetables to achieve their desired outcomes.
With respect to delegation, I’ve seen coaching clients use several strategies once they are aware of the issue, have desire to change, and willingness to dedicate themselves to trying new methods. Some examples of strategies I’ve seen implemented include:
- Develop others—Explore career desires and areas of strength with direct reports. Delegate some key responsibilities to staff that align with their strengths and career desires, offering desired outcomes and coaching as opposed to dictating process. Leaders are often surprised by the creativity and better outcomes their staff deliver.
- Reward positive accountability—Give credit and recognition when others deliver the right outcome within budget and on time. Allow staff to own the success, as opposed to the leader.
- Divest detail planning—Assign someone to take notes and define action items/deliverable dates during staff meetings, then publish and distribute following the meeting.
- Productive 1:1’s—Ensure direct reports come prepared for 1:1’s with written agendas for updates on key deliverables along with discussion points for other areas of mutual interest, such as ideas on staff development or market/organizational opportunities and issues. These agendas can be presented with bullet points or be more detailed, depending on topic or need.
Implementing strategies like the ones above tends to allow leaders more time to think strategically, communicate organizational trends and outcomes to a broader employee base, and meet with customers and customer-facing employees to better understand market dynamics.
How can executive coaching help you or your organization create awareness, desire and dedication so you can achieve your objectives more effectively?
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Lance Hazzard, PCC, CPCC, is a certified Executive Coach and Executive Team Coach helping people and organizations achieve success. Lance and Eric T. Hicks, Ph.D., co-authored Accelerating Leadership, published in June 2019. Lance is Executive Coach and President at Oppnå® Executive & Achievement Coaching. More information on the book, Lance and Oppnå® Coaching can be found at the links below: