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Podcast Transcriptions

Pursue What Matters

Episode 209: Are You Failing to Delegate?

Please excuse any typos, transcripts are generated by an automated service

  Unknown Speaker 0:00
Why is delegation so difficult? Maybe you’re a control freak, perhaps you’re afraid of failure? Join me to learn more about this very important task of leadership.

Unknown Speaker 0:31
Hi, I’m Dr. Melissa Smith, welcome to the Pursue What Matters podcast where we focus on what it takes to thrive in love and work. So in a word delegation can be challenging, many of us struggle to do it while so we might do it. But are we doing it? Well, so why is it why is it that we struggle, so we might have some deep seated beliefs about ourselves and others that can wreak havoc on our ability to delegate effectively? I’m sure you didn’t think about that, did you? Right, we might just say, like, Oh, I’m just not very good at it. But there can be some deep beliefs that drive our difficulty with delegation. And so today, I want to help you better understand some of the challenges of delegation, why it’s important to get it right, and of course, how to strengthen your delegation abilities. And next week, I’m gonna have even more for you on delegation. And so join me next week for even more on this topic. So as always, with the podcast, my goal is to help you pursue what matters by strengthening your confidence in one of three areas. So helping you lead with clarity, which is leading to purpose, helping you lead with curiosity, which is all about self awareness, and then helping you to lead and build a community. And so when we think about the importance of delegation, we’re really talking about all three things. And so when we’re tied to purpose, we’re more invested in delegation, because we know that we can’t do it all ourselves, and that in order for the organization to grow, and to fulfill its mission, we need effective delegation is also really tied to curiosity, because we want to help you develop more self awareness about what might get in the way for you when it comes to delegating. And then, of course, delegation is critical to leading and building an effective community. And so let’s jump right in and talk a little bit about what happens when we fail to delegate.

Unknown Speaker 2:34
And so failure to delegate leads to three specific failures. These failures carry exponential effect within not only the organization, but also within the marketplace. So you really want to pay attention to these. So the first failure is the failure of leaders to actually lead and develop the team, right. So that’s one, it’s a huge problem. The second failure is the failure of team members to develop competence, and confidence. So that’s one of the what that’s one of the potential consequences of leaders failing to delegate. And the third failure is the failure of the organization to grow and compete in the marketplace. And so companies just aren’t as successful because there’s a cog there. There’s, there’s a stick in the spokes when it comes to growth and delegation. And so as you can maybe tell, these failures are nested, right, so that first failure is all about the leader, right? Like what are the choices the leader is making relative to delegation, and if that leader is not delegating, effectively, that leads us to the second failure. So a little bit of a domino effect, I like to think of it as an esteem because these failures get bigger as we go. And so it’s the failure of team members to develop competence and confidence. And you know, there have been plenty of folks, maybe you can relate to this, maybe it’s been you at times where you were ready to work, you had skills, you were excited about the mission, and you were kind of left twiddling your thumbs because you didn’t get the direction that you needed, you didn’t get the trust that you needed to take on projects to take on tasks, to grow your skills and to contribute at a higher level. And so it, you know, in that scenario, our team members aren’t as effective or as efficient as they could be. And often it’s not because they’re not interested. But if they’re not getting opportunities, right through delegation, it might be really challenging to develop those skills and to become even more trustworthy and to be able to contribute at a higher level.

Unknown Speaker 4:52
And then the third failure right, so this is that third nest or that third Domino is there is a failure of the organization. Tend to grow and compete in the marketplace. Because the organization just isn’t moving, isn’t making things happen at a pace that’s competitive, that would lead to innovation. And so sometimes what happens is we stay stuck and comfortable, we do what we’ve always done. And we don’t ever push that envelope. And, you know, if you’re struggling to delegate, well, often the solution is okay, how can I just do more work in the same time, and that’s a recipe for burnout, it certainly isn’t going to be enough to meet the demands of the marketplace. And so what happens with the organization is that there’s a shrink in market share, a shrink in innovation, and a shrink in competitiveness, because you just you don’t have the man or woman power to really be effective. And so I hope that these three failures can help you to really get some good buy in as to the importance of delegation, it’s really, really critical, important, critically important to to be able to do as a leader, as a member of your organization. And so now let’s take a look at understanding why delegation is challenging. And so I like to think about this in two different ways. So we have got a skills issue. And we have a psyche issue, okay. And so when we think about skills issue, you know, you haven’t developed effective delegation skill, so maybe you’re new to leadership, maybe delegation hasn’t been modeled for you. And so when we’re thinking about it being a skills issue, the goal is to really close the gap on skill development. And so, you know, that’s not that hard to do. But it’s just starting to practice and have some guidance on that.

Unknown Speaker 6:59
And next week on the podcast, I will have a some nice guidance for you on that topic. So that is the skills deficit, right, or the skills issue. The second issue is the one that can be more challenging. It’s one that very commonly we can run into. And that is the psyche issue, right? So maybe you have some core beliefs about yourself and others that make delegation challenging. So what would that be right, the fir, the first goal really, is to increase your self awareness. So this is where we think about curiosity. But we want to increase self awareness about these core beliefs to help you get out of your own way. So you can cultivate a culture of efficient and effective leadership. So what are some of these core beliefs or core issues that can get in the way, first of all, trust, if you have difficulty trusting other people, it’s going to be pretty darn hard for you to delegate. If you have a hard time feeling like you are you belong in your position as a leader, you might be very hesitant to lead to delegate. And so sometimes that can show up as imposter syndrome. But it’s like who am I to be making these recommendations like while you’re in this position, you need to be doing it. And Sometimes the issue can be around control. We and control is the other side of the coin of trust. And so it’s just another presentation of trust. But if you if you tend to be a control freak, it’s going to be hard for you to delegate. Another issue. And this goes right along with control is perfectionism. So you might have very high, unrelenting, unrealistic standards or expectations for the work. And so you don’t delegate because you don’t believe anyone can meet those standards. And they might not be able to because they’re not very realistic standards. But you withhold opportunities for people to develop. And you also keep yourself from from being able to realize that some of those expectations might not be very realistic.

Unknown Speaker 9:15
Good is better than perfect, every single day at work. And so those can be some big blockers. We’re going to talk more about those next week. But when we think about the psyche issues, right, the goal really is to increase self awareness about Gosh, what makes me uncomfortable about this because you might be able to see kind of logically or on paper, hey, it makes sense to delegate to this person. So what’s getting in the way? Why am I having a hard time with that, then that’s where we really invite you to get curious about your experience to be able to say, hey, there’s something here that maybe I need to challenge. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be comfortable probably will be pretty uncomfortable. But you know, that’s where tying it to mission and clarity can be really helped because you don’t want to fall in the, into the trap of these three failures because it can, right it’s, it’s more than just your discomfort, it can be a real problem for your team and in the marketplace.

Unknown Speaker 10:14
So we want you to also challenge these delegation error errors, because it helps to ensure your team members develop that competence and confidence needed to succeed and to contribute to the organization in meaningful ways. So it’s really important to do that. And so join me next week to learn three common delegation errors and what to do about them. So as a review, today, we talked about, we asked the question, first of all, are you failing to delegate we talked about why delegation can be challenging. And then we talked about three specific failures, that failure to delegate can lead to one failure of leaders to actually lead and develop the team, it’s one of your most important responsibilities as a leader.

Unknown Speaker 11:01
You know, when we think about this failure of leaders, you have two jobs as a leader to ensure you deliver your services and products in the marketplace successfully and differentially from competitors, and to ensure you develop your team so that the process of service and product delivery is effective, efficient and successful. And so you know, if you’re not delegating, that’s a huge failure to actually lead and develop your team. The second failure we talked about is the failure of team members to develop competence and confidence. And of course, this is a problem, because you need them to be successful. And then the third failure is the failure of the organization to grow and compete in the marketplace. And so organizations stay stuck, they shrink and market share. And then we talked about understanding why delegation can be challenging, and we talked about a skills gap. And we talked about the psyche issues. And then next week, join me as we’re going to talk about three common delegation errors and what to do about them. So that you know if if delegation is challenging, first of all, you’re in good company. It’s it’s the case for a lot of folks. But that’s not an excuse. And so we want to help you to understand this even more what might be loading for you around this, and then taking some practical steps that can be super effective for this.

Unknown Speaker 12:25
So I hope you’ll join me next week. So in the in the meantime, head on over to my website to check out the show notes with the resources for this episode at www.drmelissasmith.com/209-failuretodelegate one more time that’s www.drmelissasmith.com/209-failuretodelegate So I would love to connect with you on Instagram @dr.melissasmith I’ve always got extra resources, lots of resources tied to the podcast and tied to these topics. And I’d love to hear your thoughts on these issues. And I’d also really appreciate it if you gave the podcast a review. It helps people to find the podcast it also helps me to know what is resonating with you and you can do that on Apple or Spotify anywhere you check out the podcast. So in the meantime, I’m Dr. Melissa Smith. Remember love and work, work in love. That’s all there is. Until next time, take good care

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