Is your delegation disempowering?

Why was my new, highly qualified team member struggling with motivation and performance when I was giving him so much autonomy?

After all, I had treated him like my other employees who were excelling.? I gave him a picture of the desired outcome and communicated that I trusted him to work out the specifics.? I let him know that I was happy to help if he had any questions.

That, I would later realize, was my mistake: he didn’t ask me for help—because I hadn’t adequately explained the problems and the potential difficulties in solving them. I hadn’t given him enough context.?

In my desire to help him ‘think freely’ I didn’t give him enough to think about—and the result was overwhelm, not confidence.

According to neuroscience, creativity flourishes when we are confident.? Confidence can influence the dopaminergic system in the brain, which is involved in reward processing and motivation. Higher confidence levels are associated with increased dopamine release, which enhances motivation and promotes exploratory behavior conducive to creativity.

The factors leading to confidence differ by individual, but self-efficacy (the belief that you can accomplish a task) plays a big part.? And if you lack clarity around what that task is or the context necessary to understand how it fits in, your confidence drops, and your creativity wanes.

?This has me thinking about lazy delegation (which is what I had done).

I’ve realized: lazy delegation disempowers.?

Eliciting peak performance requires tailored scaffolding to support the employee.? Simply providing the outcome and saying “go” doesn’t work.

I had wanted to provide this employee the freedom to be creative in his work to show that I valued what he brought to the team, but had skipped over investigating what would make that freedom productive.

Of course, I know this—or, I know this often enough to not always be caught by lazy delegation—but I didn’t apply it with that employee, and that has me thinking about why.?

I suspect it has to do with a few things: one, he had a lot of experience and, as a fairly new manager, I didn’t want to overstep, or heaven forbid, micromanage.

Second, I was leading remotely and was a bit overwhelmed with tasks myself. I allowed my fear of micromanaging him to justify a "light touch" leadership approach that was made easier by the distance.

What I had done with my other employees that I hadn’t done with him was apply what I had learned in grad school about Vgtotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development and scaffolding.? Applying this approach with them came easier for me since they entered the team as interns.

Conversely, for this experienced employee, I had tried to increase the challenge of his work by limiting the direction I gave him, but had not provided the necessary support to help him rise to that challenge.

I find, when I speak with my clients, this is often one of the problems they face—distinguishing between where are they being lazy in delegation, and where are they providing creative freedom and the environment for growth.?

It’s a hard thing to figure out, but can be done with the right mix of conversation, observation, and assessment.? ?If you see your employee struggle at first but remain engaged and grow in confidence, you’re likely in the sweet spot.

Yes, it takes work and intention (especially in a remote work environment) in the short term, but that is by far exceeded by the long-term efficiency benefits of having an empowered and engaged employee and team.

Need some help in providing scaffolding?? When assigning a new project, at a minimum, make sure your employee has the answers to the 3 W’s and 1 H below.

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