Management Essay | Delegation

Who Should Decide | Delegation

We had an opening for a key position on a large project I was leading. The team in which the new employee would join brought forward two strong candidates as finalists and asked me to interview them.

Both were very good, but the first candidate struck me as better. A meeting of the team was called to make the hiring decision. They asked and I provided my opinion. I prided myself at being good at identifying top candidates and thought, surely, everyone will agree and the meeting will be over quickly.

To my surprise, the group begrudgingly admitted they thought the second candidate was better and they wanted to hire her (both candidates were female).

I probed and they had good answers to support their recommendation.

I could have overruled them and ordered them to hire my choice but then I realized:

• I hired all the people in the meeting and trusted their judgment
• They were top performers who did very good work, individually and as a team
• They would have to work with her and bear the consequences of a bad decisions.

So I agreed. The second candidate was hired for the project. Over time, I realized how right they were. She did well immediately and was regularly recognized by the client. This experience began to shape my thinking about delegation. Whatever reluctance I might have had was not realized.

Further, I always thought I was ready to take on more responsibility much earlier than the bosses. No doubt others felt the same way. So I began to experiment with delegation of work and decisions more often, to those I believed were up to the task, even if they were regarded as junior or inexperienced by others.

What I learned altered my management style. Regularly, good things happened. Yes, some disappointments occurred primarily because of inexperience, but offsetting this was creativity and innovation generated by these folks when given the chance.

Ironically, some of the solutions or approaches they came up with had been missed by more senior, experienced staff. I also learned that by delegating more, I had time to work on other issues/problems and increase my skills.

An additional benefit of this discovery came in selecting a boss. My job satisfaction increased working for a boss who delegated appropriately, so interviewing became a search for the right boss.

Key questions I used:

• How is work assigned?
• How are decisions made?
• How often are your recommendations accepted vs overruled?

Using these helped with my job, but continue to serve a constant benchmark for my approach to delegation.

- Paul Lawrence

#Leadership #Management