Everyone knows that leaders should delegate.  

If you don’t delegate you don’t have the time to work on the projects and initiatives that only you can handle and require your attention.  Beyond that you aren’t building the capabilities of people who work for you, and you will ultimately end up overwhelmed, overworked and unable to successfully manage your own work.

My experience though is that leaders fall into one of two camps.  

They either don’t delegate (or delegate enough) or they delegate too much and often delegate the wrong things.  There are many reasons leaders don’t delegate, and they typically relate to lack of trust…they don’t trust that others will be able to handle the work successfully and it will come back to them to fix, so they might as well handle themselves in the first place.  

This article isn’t about those leaders, it’s about leaders who delegate too much and how that can become a problem.

Here is what I have observed when working with clients:

1. They delegate everything or delegate way too much
2. They delegate to the wrong people
3. They delegate the wrong activities, tasks or things

Each of these creates a potential problem that leaves the leader feeling a loss of control, poor communication and projects/tasks not being handled properly.  

Take for example a client I worked with who fancied himself a superior leader because he delegated almost everything…  

He kept what he wanted to handle, and pushed everything else to someone else.  There were three large projects under his area of responsibility, each headed by a project manager.  Three months into the projects he calls me in a panic. Two of the projects are totally off track, not what he was expecting and the third was so far behind schedule there was no way they could meet the deadline.  His question “how could this happen?” And then his next comment was “I’m must have the wrong people heading these projects”.

He actually didn’t have the wrong people.  

What he was missing was clear and frequent communication with the project managers and the teams.  They missed having a conversation before starting the project to ensure everyone understood and was on the same page as to what needed done.  This leader simply told them what he wanted, assumed they understood and would get it done.

Not only did he delegate the project itself, he delegates all the responsibility for the communication, problem solving and changes that might need to be made.  

Basically he abdicated responsibility and authority to his managers, and then was upset when things went awry. This is a clear example of when delegating too much becomes a problem.

As a leader learning to delegate effectively is a key skill to develop.  

Learning what to delegate, who to delegate to and how much to delegate is what makes the art of delegation work, or causes havoc.  Having someone make copies probably doesn’t require much oversight. However if those copies need to be bound into a booklet for a presentation, with tabs and a cover detailed instructions are critical.  You might want to have one prepared and you check it out before they make 25 more copies that aren’t what you wanted.

In closing, delegation isn’t simply handing off tasks and projects and assuming you will get superior results.  

It requires you, the leader to think about what you are delegating, if the person you are delegating to has the skills or can be taught the skills quickly. You have to consider is this a one time task that you can do in an hour but would take someone else three to complete, and does it make sense to hand it off to them.

Just remember that delegating a task/project is only one component of delegating.  

You still hold responsibility for ensuring the communication loop is established, that everyone knows when to come to you for help and establishing metrics for success.  

When you delegate too much and delegate without a communication loop you are setting yourself and others up for a ton of frustration and problems.