As a people manager, you grew into your role as a leader by excelling at individual contributions. You know you need to be different, but change is not easy. The habits you were once praised for are now behaviors that can get in the way of your team's success. Adjusting your mindset will be essential to your success.
Effective leaders produce results through others.
In every leader's journey, a point comes when they can no longer do everything themselves and must begin to enlist others to fulfill the scope of the work. At that point, a leader's success is based on their ability to attract, retain, and develop talent. Successful leaders surround themselves with great people and effectively bring out the best in the people they work with. As you grow your leadership abilities, you must master the ability to accomplish work through others.
Tip 1: Focus on doing what no one else can do.
As the leader, your goal should be to master delegating. The reason for this is partially economic. As the leader, you likely are the highest-paid individual within your team. When you complete a task that someone else could complete, you raise the cost associated with completing that task. You also eliminate the opportunity for your employee to operate within their wheelhouse. When you delegate, you allow your employees to grow and gain much-needed experience and confidence. Over time, this growth helps produce greater competency among your employees. As employees' confidence and competence grow, they can take on increasingly complex challenges, which creates new potential for the organization.
Tip 2: Leverage individual employee strengths.
Tapping into the energy, knowledge, and strengths of others is another excellent reason to delegate. We all have different strengths, experiences, and perspectives, which influence the ideas we have and the outcomes we produce. You can leverage your team members' individual strengths by empowering them to take on more complex assignments. The key here is providing a vision of what you are asking them to do and then giving them room to do it. When delegating, you want to ensure that the person you select to work on the task has the information and capabilities necessary to execute to your expectations. You also want to be clear about the parameters of the assignment. The better you communicate your expectations upfront, the more likely you will be pleased with the outcome.
Tip 3: Be strategic when delegating.
One benefit of delegating is that it allows you to be more strategic as a leader. A leader's role is to ensure the execution of day-to-day activities, develop talent, and plan for the future. You must be able to oscillate between zooming in on minute details and zooming out to see the big picture. The act of delegating reduces the time you must spend on minute details, freeing you up to focus more holistically on the entire business.
No single project defines the long-term success of an organization. Success is delivered by building positive momentum over time. When leaders can accept imperfect progress, they position their organizations to take risks, learn from mistakes, and establish the knowledge and capabilities necessary for long-term success. The pursuit of perfection often results in inefficiencies that stagnate growth. Leaders determine the minimum acceptable level of execution needed for the organization to achieve their strategic objectives.
Tip 4: Accept things might not be perfect at first.
When you move into a leadership role, you are expected to replicate the success you delivered as an individual contributor across your team. Developing those you work with is the only sustainable way to do this. Leaders who try to be superhuman by executing their strategic roles in addition to their organization's tactical work risk burnout and stagnating their teams' growth.
Employees learn best by doing. It is a hard truth, but failure is the best teacher. Leaders willing to delegate provide employees with the trial and error needed for skill development and mastery. In employee satisfaction surveys, lack of development and career advancement opportunities are the two most cited reasons people leave organizations. When you delegate effectively, you address these concerns by increasing employee learning opportunities. This will help you be a talent magnet to people inside and outside your organization.
Summary
The skills and abilities that helped you to grow into a leadership position are not the ones that will allow you to excel as a leader. Individual contributors must demonstrate technical excellence. They must pursue perfection in everything they do because they are personally accountable for the work they produce.
Leaders maintain personal accountability but have added responsibility for the work completed by others. As a leader, it is vital to shift from micromanaging every detail of how work is completed to creating an environment where
You focus on the things only you can do.
Help employees develop their wheelhouse.
Protect momentum by being strategic.
Create teachable moments to support employee development.
When leaders can develop delegation skills, they scale their influence and position their organizations for faster and better growth. Employees' ability to reach their full potential is directly linked to your willingness to give them challenging work to master. As you stretch your employees' capabilities through delegation, you also build your ability as an executive. It is a win-win that will help you become the leader you want to be.
As an Executive Coach and Small Business Consultant, I work with leaders who aspire to take their leadership to the next level.
If you are looking to learn frameworks and skills that make it easier for you to lead, we should talk.
I offer low-risk coaching packages that are customized to each client's needs. Whether you want to build your confidence, improve communication, or gain more comfort in delegating, I am here to help you on your path.
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