ProActive Leadership Consulting - Training - Coaching

A reproducible, "How to" article from the pen of Dr. Millard MacAdam

ProActive Delegation ^©

 Adopted from his article published in the Daily Pilot Newspaper  

As I walked into Jim's office to do CEO coaching with him, he was barking orders to one of the members of his management team. His tone was harsh and it was clear he was angry. He looked physically exhausted and appeared pressed for time.

After he told Susan he would do it himself, she left his office. I asked him, "What's going on with Susan? Isn't she meeting your expectations?" "Well...most of the time she does," he said in a much calmer and slightly guilty tone. "Why not now?" I countered.

As I began the coaching session, I reminded Jim of the definition of delegation as I had defined it in the workshop in which he had participated with his management team. We reviewed how delegation must be more than assigning tasks, or it will lead to reacting negatively toward people when delegated tasks are not completed in a timely and competent way.

Ineffective delegation eats up a leader's critical emotional, physical and time reserves. Effective delegation builds those reserves, giving a leader discretionary reserves to use in more productive ways.

ProActive Delegation is being professionally active and assertive, instead of being reactive and aggressive in transferring authority, responsibility and accountability from one person or group to another. ProActive Delegation is done collaboratively and with mutual agreement.

Do you, like Jim, often find yourself having difficulty delegating within the standards of this "ProActive" definition? As a result of ineffective delegation, are you often overloading your brains and your body to a point of stress that creates dysfunction in your personal life as well as in your business life?

Have you asked why you do this to yourself? My prediction is that you, like Jim, are in a leadership role because your personal style is to naturally take charge, get things moving, and get it done...yesterday. You may be the type of person who sees what needs to be done to achieve successful outcomes, who is impatient waiting for others, so you jump in and do it yourself!

When leaders overuse or overextend their strengths, they tend to try to control things too much. They try to do everything themselves rather than proactively delegate to others. In this case, their strengths often become liabilities and actually serve to block peak performance on the part of themselves and others in the organization. Often they lose the sense of control they so intensely desire and sacrifice quality and service by trying to keep it within their own grasp. This contributes to the reduction of their organization's effectiveness, efficiency and competitive edge.

Even if your style is "take charge and do it," you can gain significant benefits from practicing and mastering ProActive Delegation as a responsive, leadership-enhancing strategy. You can gain some of the benefits I have seen Jim and other organization leaders get from learning how to skillfully and appropriately delegate authority, responsibility and accountability to others in their organizations. Check the proven benefits below and reflect on the ones that will make your personal and work life more rewarding.

ProActive Delegation will...

• Make your job as a leader easier and give you the discretionary time to envision how your organization can be enhanced.

• Increase individual and group productivity.

• Develop additional leadership and initiative in the people in the ranks.

• Provide you with more time to reflect, pray and bring into balance the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of your personal and professional life.

• Stimulate employee creativity.

• Create higher morale and motivation by your demonstration of trust and confidence in employees' abilities.

• Stimulate employee motivation and commitment to your organization's vision, values, mission and goals.

As I coach leaders and help them master and apply the skills they want to develop and use in the work environment, I see that those who have learned to skillfully use ProActive Delegation are able to:

• Recognize the situational limits of their own physical, mental and emotional capacity so that they take care of themselves and regularly avoid the "burn up", "burn out" and "bail out" syndromes.

• Determine the purpose of the task being delegated and its relevance to the vision, values, mission and goals of the company.

• Carefully select the projects, tasks or activities to be delegated.

• Accurately select the person or persons who have demonstrated "can do" competencies and "will do" motivation to successfully complete the assignment.

• Meet with the person or group selected to do the task or project and explain all instructions, requirements and check out the "can do", "will do" and other important factors relevant to the assignment.

When I first start coaching and observing the performance of leaders, I often note three common "attitude traps" they use to rationalize or tell themselves some very "rational lies." Armed with these rationalizations, they fail to delegate even when they know the benefits! Check each rationalization to see if you are your own worst productivity enemy. Jim did and then made the decision and commitment to seriously work with me in a coaching relationship to reduce the stress in his life and the stress he was creating in the lives of his colleagues.

These attitude traps are:

• "The job will not be done the way I would do it or as well."

• "My subordinates lack the necessary training to perform the job and I don't have the time or budget to coach or train them."

• “I enjoy doing the work, and therefore do not want to delegate because others won't be as motivated as I am.”

Like Jim, I hope you get flashes of insight into the "rational lies" you are telling yourself. You will, if you diligently reflect on what you do at work and determine if you are using work tasks to escape from competently carrying out the executive, leadership and managerial level responsibilities that are yours. You might also ask yourself if you are neglecting personal needs, family relationships and other areas of your life that deserve a significant priority for your time and person.

Whatever you discover that has meaning to you, I encourage you to make a public commitment and contract with yourself to actively use ProActive Delegation for thirty days. Get one or more of your colleagues and family members to help you figure out appropriate ways to do it. Get them to give you direct feedback on how you are doing and how it impacts their motivation and performance. You have my personal, no risk guarantee you'll celebrate new reserves of physical and emotional energy, increased discretionary time and personal effectiveness! If you don't, by the end of thirty days of diligent ProActive Delegation, you can return to your old ways and continue doing everything yourself! It will at least keep your cardiovascular rate high.

Please, keep a smile on your face and relax a little more as you engage in the ProActive Delegation process. You’ll enjoy both the process and the benefits you reap from it!