Let Go to Grow: Article 1, Leading from Afar Series

The biggest personal struggle I have faced while working from the Netherlands and doing my best to lead from afar, is managing my own fear of being forgotten, of not being seen as a significant contributor to the organization. I mention this, because it is related to a natural phenomenon that can occur when humans perceive they may lose something they cherish, like one’s value or purpose. Or one's projects, programs, or responsibilities. Some of us, when we believe we are at risk of having something we have worked very hard to create taken away, our natural instinct is often to hold on even more tightly. It’s a reflex, kind of like a survival mechanism. And it is this very human response to avoiding loss that makes this first lesson so incredibly difficult to achieve. There are a multitude of nuanced reasons why letting go can be hard, but these are almost irrelevant as long as you can figure out what's behind it and get past it. And that’s what this article is all about, letting go so you - and others - continue to grow. Remember, that's what leadership is all about, being the best we can be and on the way, helping others do the same.

Though we know letting go is not an easy task, it can be strengthened with practice, like a muscle. And we can get really good at it actually, in a healthy way. If you practice letting go enough and actually realize some level of gain – emotional, physical, or mental – that success will reinforce and strengthen future efforts. Being positively rewarded for new behavior keeping us coming back for more. Good ol’ Skinnerian behavioral reinforcement at its best. And the neat thing is, as you continue to take the risk of letting go and also continue to realize success for doing so, you are simultaneously strengthening your resilience muscle too. Remember the concept of resilience discussed in my introduction article last week? The ability to bounce back after a set-back? The willingness as a consequence to jump into change like it’s a new pair of knickers? Well if you missed it, you can link to it here:

Leading from Aar: Introduction

The Benefit of Letting Go

Strengthening resilience through successful repetition is exactly what has to happen in order to effectively let go of your work and continue to do so without difficulty or upset. All it requires is that you continue to realize some benefit for doing it. Yet to get the ball rolling, you have to have a compelling reason for letting go in the first place. We don’t typically let go of something just for the sake of doing it, or wake up in the morning saying “I think just for the heck of it, I’ll let go of something today”. Again, there has to be a strong reason driving you to transition the work away from you to begin with. 

For some of you attentive readers, those strong in the awareness department (one of the four critical leadership attributes from the intro article last week), you have already recognized that I oh-so-very-cleverly hid the clue to the benefit we realize from letting go, right before your eyes, in the title of this article. Yup, the great benefit for giving work over to another is, put very simply, is "To Grow”. To grow both ourselves and others as leaders. To grow ourselves into more effective leaders of people, and to grow others in their content expertise as well as the leadership skills. Growth occurs for us who let go of the work as well as those to whom we turnover our work. It’s what we call a “win-win”, where everyone may benefit from the process, the change.

So let’s discuss the secret sauce behind actually being able to take action on your intention to let go. In order for you to move past any barrier that may be keeping you from letting go and transitioning your work to another, whether that be fear of not getting credit or recognition (mine, as I bravely disclosed earlier), or because it will take too much work to do so, or because you have loss of control issues, or because of whatever particular reason you have, you’ve got to really, really, really want the change to help you over the hurdle. You have to fully see the benefits of realizing the change, or desired state, and believe – even know – that it will bring you a reward that far exceeds what you experience currently. If the desire for the future state is at all murky or ill-defined, your chances of success decrease significantly. This is a darned good thing to know before you start any change whether that's letting go, losing weight, taking on a new job, moving to a new country, or whatever. For change to be successful, it must have your 100% commitment. You want to apply your full energy into those activities that you most want to achieve and will bring you, and consequently your organization, the greatest benefit. Why? Because it's that vision of what success looks like that gets you through the difficulty of letting go, of supporting you as you give up what you are comfortable with. If you don't have a strong enough motivation to change, very honestly, its better to put your energy toward those endeavors you are passionate about. The point is, and to bring this back to the topic at hand, you have to absolutely and completely understand and believe in the value that will come from effectively letting go.   

For those of you who truly want to become a more effective leader of people and are ready to commit to letting go of some of your work, let's cover some of the very big pay-offs that you can realize by doing so. Hopefully reviewing these will strengthen your commitment and increase your likelihood of success. First, for us doing the letting go, we strengthen each of the four core leadership attributes I wrote about in the introduction article last week, awareness, attitude, character, and resilience. For example, our awareness grows as we attend to the nuances of the work that may have been done without thought. It also grows when we start to notice the different levels of guidance we have to provide to each of our charges, those we’ve given our work to. We can practice using a positive attitude which comes in super handy when you run into the frustration or feelings of doubt that inevitably occur when you give up direct ownership of work that you care about. Your Character is strengthened every time you keep your cool during one of those frustrating moments you’re very surely going to experience, or when you successfully fight the urge to take a short-cut and do the work yourself instead of spending the time coaching your charge to do it. And of course resilience comes into play as you get better and better at leading others at just the right frequency of support (and by the way, this art of applying just the right level of guidance will be discussed in more detail on June 18 in article four, “Thoughtfully Apply Driving, Guiding, and Letting Go”), shifting as necessary to best develop others. 

The cool thing is, our charges, those taking over work, also grow their core leadership skills - the essential interpersonal skills, erroneously labelled as "soft skills" - through the experience. They develop awareness of: themselves performing a whole new set of responsibilities; of other leaders at more visible levels of the organization and how best to interact with them effectively, and; of their environment and what is expected of them within that particular context. Attitude, character, and resilience come into play similarly for all of us, whether taking on or giving up work. Therefore our charges benefit and grow from remaining solution-focused and positive when faced with new and unforeseen challenge (attitude), keeping calm and composed when things get hectic while also making themselves accountable for their work (character), and rebounding quickly when things don’t go quite as planned without too much effort or fuss (resilience).    

The Act of Letting Go, or the Difference between Thinking and Doing

Now that we have identified some of the most powerful benefits of and reasons for letting go, how do we act? Intellectually we may very well understand that gaining true control requires giving up control, but thinking about doing something and actively doing it (and doing it well) are two very different animals. Or to put it another way, it’s so much easier to think about doing something than to actually do something. The good news is, if you have identified very clear wins for letting go, you are half-way there. Now it's just about mastering the art of coaching and leading others through the work you have let go to them. Oh...you didn't think letting go meant giving it up completely, did you? 

Delegation is not Abandonment: Finding a new way to stay engaged

A critical first step to being able to let go of your work effectively and delegate correctly without too much heartache, is to make a clear distinction between delegation and abandonment. They are not the same thing. Delegating work to others requires our continued commitment to the work’s successful outcome. Abandonment of work does not. Delegation implies a continued investment of your time and emotion. Abandonment of work does not. So if you thought you might get some time back by delegating work to another, think again; it is very likely that you will spend an equal amount of time or more ensuring the delegated work is managed and led successfully if you are delegating with the intention of growing.

Leaders ideally delegate work to grow themselves at growing others as opposed to simply getting work off their plate – not that totally disengaging from work isn’t a correct strategy, if and when truly applied correctly and strategically. Yet if one abandons work, it implies that all connection to the outcome of the work has been severed, relinquished. On the other hand, if one delegates work, the focus is on helping the designee take over and drive the work to a successful outcome. Effective delegation requires that we never actually let go of our commitment and responsibility for the work's eventual success. We just remain invested from a different position. This is a comforting piece of information for those of us who, like me, struggle with the letting go piece due to control issues. We can still engage, care, and hold a level of accountability. And that’s where our own growth comes in. If we have delegated well, our charges have also grown as we have nurtured and/or supported them in realizing equal or better results than we would have, had we held the work to ourselves. 

Let’s be clear, at times abandonment of work is also the most effective strategy for a leader’s performance as well as the designee’s. The point is, a leader must consciously determine which of the two is the best approach, delegation or complete disengagement, and apply the strategy that is needed with the conscious intention of growing self and other. Letting go of work effectively really comes down to calibrating your involvement in the work to just the right frequency needed by your charge, the person you have turned to work over to. If you care to learn more about finding this sweet spot of delegation, remember that the focus of Article 4, out on June 18, is on driving, guiding, and letting go and what's the best approach when. In that article, I will also share a description of a “Degrees of Separation” plan, a consciously laid-out delegation strategy that helps you tailor your guidance level to your charge’s unique support needs. Next week I will be writing about how to shift your measures of success to help you on your leading from afar journey. Until then, please spend some time considering the benefits you will realize effectively delegating to others. Also begin to think through the level of engagement you can best maintain to help your new owner of the work, succeed. Make your commitment to self and others to let go to grow.

Articles: Titles and Dates

1.    Let Go to Grow, May 28

2.    NEXT WEEK: Shift Your Measure of Success, June 4

3.    Reflect on Your Behaviors and the Motivations behind Them, June 11

4.    Thoughtfully Apply Driving, Guiding, and Letting go, June 18

5.    Nurture Your Relationships Consciously, June 25

6.    Keep Yourself Present in Mind When You Can't Be There In Body, July 2

7.    Get Super Comfortable Talking on the Phone and Help Others Be, July 9

8.    Track Your Activity Regularly, July 16

9.    Make Yourself Accountable, July 23

10. Make Sure Your Success Impacts Someone at Home, July 30

11. Create a Schedule That Works and Make it Work, August 6

12. Enjoy the Experience, August 13