The Flip Side of Effective Delegation

In its purest form, leadership is about developing and empowering others to accomplish a common goal or objective. One primary way this manifests is by delegating ownership and responsibilities through decentralized leadership.

The art of team building requires that we distribute workload across the team so that people who take on responsibilities possess the unique skills to accomplish the tasks or share further within their team. It’s a shift from individual responsibility to a culture of collective responsibility.

Our involvement in the details subsides, while our influence and oversight remain to help push initiatives forward through guidance and feedback.

It’s not about “getting things off our plates.” It’s about developing our team’s capabilities. Time freed up to focus on more strategic responsibilities is a by-product we can leverage, and it also presents another aspect of delegation we must be mindful of.

When done well, effectively distributing ownership and work across a team creates a scenario where we can pull back from the day-to-day. We can subjectively measure this by asking, “If I took an unexpected week away from the company, would our initiatives and priorities advance in my absence?”

If the answer is “no,” then we’re still holding on to too much of the responsibility that makes the organization operate. If the answer is “yes,” we can shift from operations and execution to strategy. In other words, we can work “on the business” instead of “in the business.”

As with any transition, however, we face a dichotomy on the flip side of effective delegation. This is an often overlooked and under-discussed topic regarding the discomfort a leader can feel when we’ve done what we’re supposed to, and many are unprepared when it hits.

Delegation shifts the operational burden from the leader to the team. Team members directly engage with the tasks and make decisions within the framework and boundaries provided. The leader’s role transitions from hands-on involvement to oversight, guidance, strategy, and vision.

It’s all a natural evolution of the process—much of this is common sense. But thoughts and emotions sometimes defy logic. The transition to a higher-level set of responsibilities can be daunting and create a sense of redundancy for the leader as the team becomes more autonomous and self-sufficient.

In this space, many leaders will question their value and contribution, feeling distanced from the tangible outcomes of the team’s efforts. It’s this experience that creates the “leadership is lonely” perception.

However, this perceived hollowness is just that—a perception. Fundamentally, we must remember that this signals that we’ve successfully developed a capable team that can operate efficiently without constant oversight.

We must have the awareness and discipline to recognize what is happening, embrace and accept that our role is changing, and take steps to adjust our responsibilities to vision, direction, support, relationships, strategic business development, etc. Our purpose and value within the organization change, and so must our daily priorities and habits.

Along with our priorities and habits, we must shift our internal reward system away from what we do directly to what we empower others to do, finding fulfillment in their success and growth. That’s not an easy context switch—sometimes, we become so immersed in supporting others that when we zoom back out and look at ourselves, we question whether we’re “doing enough.”

This is true for those at a senior level and those we lead and delegate to. Again, delegation should have a cascading effect in a decentralized leadership setting.

When they delegate effectively, our direct reports often face similar situations. If we do not support them through this process, they’ll be left to question their role and sometimes lack clarity on their responsibilities moving forward. We must think ahead about helping them through the process and evolving their role to operate from a higher vantage point.

Leadership development is human development. Whether delegation or other topics, these scenarios can produce counterintuitive instances where human nature takes over. We must have the systems and awareness to proactively understand the effects of transitions, change management, etc., so we can be flexible and adjust.

We must lead ourselves so that we can effectively lead others.

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