Let’s start with some stats, did you know that statistics show that 79% of professionals take the decision to quit due to a “lack of appreciation from their leaders” but despite that, only 30% of managers believe they can delegate well? Some important authors claim there is huge evidence of how delegating responsibilities for decision-making increases productivity, morale, and commitment, impacting directly and positively their revenue, growing authority, and creating more jobs.

When leaders delegate certain tasks to others, they become free to focus on higher-value activities and use their time more productively. Delegation not only gives leaders time for strategic thinking, but it also allows them to focus on other tasks that only they can perform, such as creating a new line of business, growing their company, evaluating their processes, and so on. But there is also a very important thing: it allows you as a leader to develop new leaders in your own team.

But despite the statement above, for many leaders, deligating means a difficult transition to make, if you are a manager, a leader, or a supervisor of a team in a company you might feel related to this feeling. it sometimes turns painful and stressful.

But let’s analyze this sentence:

“Leaders must be more essential and less involved and avoid getting confused between those terms”

Now read it again…

I know, now take a deep breath

and read it one more time:

“Leaders must be more essential and less involved and avoid getting confused between those terms”

This means molding the thoughts and ideas of others rather than dictating your plans to them, having the desired perspective but not being a merely forced passerby, and seeing your own priorities come to life through other people’s inspired actions. Remember, delegating allows you as a leader to develop new leaders in your own team.

Now if you felt somewhat related to the feeling expressed in the image above -I have to admit I think I was – you need to continue reading…

Some barriers we can identify in non-healthy leadership or management are:

• Fear of losing authority and power
• Personal Attitudes
• Lack of leadership skills
• Lack of knowledge of staff members’ skills, abilities, and responsibilities. (Take a look at Good Practice Guidelines for Greatest Leaders by Mya Assistant)
• Lack of training plan -succession planning- (Take a look at Succession Planning by Mya Assistant)

Now we are at that level again, remember? We know what it is and its importance, and we also might have questioned ourselves if need to adjust our own leadership style to the one that effective leaders use. But, how do we do it?

No worries! I brought you these summarized actions you can have in mind before starting to delegate as a Great Leader:

1. Pick the right person: To be able to choose the right person you have to know very well your EA’s skills, abilities, interests, so you chose the person to take on the task.

2. Know very well what your EA does and how he does it. Knowing your EAs responsibilities and how much autonomy they have allows you to effectively know who is going to perform as expected with the delegated task. It is important to count on a Good Practice Guideline –Take a look at Good Practice Guidelines for Greatest Leaders by Mya Assistant

3. Establish a clear action plan. Michael Hyatt recommends 5 levels of delegation to be a Great Leader:

• Do as I say (do exactly what I asked you to do).
• Research & report (gather and research information and report to me what you discover).
• Research & recommend (research topic, outline the option, and show the pros and cons of each option)
• Decide & Inform (Make a decision and tell me what you did, then keep me in the loop).
• Act Independently. Take whatever decision you think is best and no need to report me back. Full trust.

Leaders, know their staff makes mistakes because they are pushing the boundaries, that is how they are going to create new things and improve their own skills. Creativity and leadership do not happen in a close environment where mistakes are not allowed, therefore knowing our Executive Assistants as well as possible, and based on their talent and abilities delegating them tasks creates the proper environment for success.

Did you enjoy this post? I’m sure you have, but not as much as I have enjoyed sharing it with you. Please remember we can meet each other in another post, here are some great ones:

What is Ethical Leadership?

Are you a successful leader or an effective leader?

Good Practice Guidelines for the Greatest Leaders

…see you there!