Learning to delegate
There are people who were born to delegate, and it shows. There are people who delegate, and it’s because they haven’t the ability to do the jobs they delegate. And then there are people like me.
See, I grew up with a father who taught me this lesson: Never send a man to do a job you’re afraid to do, or too lazy to do, or you find distasteful.
SO all my life, when there was something nasty to do, or something annoying that needed done, I never even said a thing, I just did it. It was hard developing this habit, but i did, and now it’s hard to stop. Consequently, I’ve slung a lot of shit. Gutted a lot of hogs. Changed a lot of brakes. Crawled on my hands and knees through tons of hot steaming coal to fix recalcitrant machinery.
So one of the hardest things for me to do, is to send someone to a tough job. THis is as true of mmy job as it is my country. I hate that young kids are defending us, and I wish I could go myself, but I have other responsibilities. One of them is to train my replacement.
Because- as most who know me understand- there are not a lot of people like me, and we are in pretty high demand. Not many want to put up with the abuse.
So I’m having to learn to delegate, and it galls me, because I’m never as happy with a job that I do not do, but it’s time.
At least you are aware of that. More than many can say.
Delegating is easy for “managers” who know not what is going on.
Delegating is very difficult for people who understand and take personal responsibility.
Yeah, it’s tough… but here’s where the rubber meets the road, Og.
You can do only so much.
You can pick competent delegates, and give them work you would have otherwise done yourself….
And since you know the work, you can check the delegates’ work much more quickly than you could do the work yourself. So….
Delegating (to competent people) is a force multiplier. Your competent people can do more than you could, and you check their work. Therefore, by delegation, you provide more value to the employer, and more likely continued employment to your delegates and yourself.
Just my $.02 worth.
I used to be the same way…. and all my employees thought I was one helluva guy and the best damn boss they’d ever had. They were MORE than willing to sit on their asses and watch me do THEIR work for them.
Then one day I wised up and realized that I get paid to make sure things get done…. not to do them. I also realized that if I didn’t make the other guys do their jobs then I was depriving them of much needed experience and was actually hampering then AND myself in the long run. If you don’t have competent people who can step into your job TODAY, then upper management can’t afford to promote YOU.
Now I don’t do ANYTHING that I can get someone else to do for me. PERIOD. I do it myself as the course of last resort.
I admit that every now and again I’ll jump on a project just to show the other guys that the Old Man can still dance and that I DO know WTF I’m doing and that they can’t BS me.
Another thing I’ve found… no matter how good I am personally, two or more people who actually do their jobs can work rings around me alone. Who woulda thunk it???
There’s an unfathomable difference between delegation and leadership.
Well said, Dick.
I keep the following hanging in front of my desk at all times:
A manager administers, a leader innovates.
A manager maintains, a leader develops.
A manager relies on systems, a leader relies on people.
A manager counts on controls, a leader counts on trust.
A manager does things right, a leader does the right thing.
I am a good manager that is always in search of a good leader.
A good trainer makes a good delegator. If you train them yourself and train them well, it’s easier to hand off responsibility. Of course you never think they can do the job as well as you can, but you can’t help but feel pride when in fact they do and sometime surpass you….
Well the other thing about being a leader is that when you get a group performing up to snuff you will find that you have to spend time protecting them. for example,some clown will have group that is under performing for one reason or another, so he will complain to a supervisor about one your people.
J’accuse. The reply for this is something like, “If you have the time to be bird dogging my people then you obviously aren’t spending enough time watching yours.”
It’s kind of like the executive officer runs the ship and the captain fights the ship.
Engineers and techies are notorious for having problems going from hands on to leaders. There comes a point where they have to delegate even the training to someone else.