648: Delegating Leadership Of Your Business To Others

While in Turkey, we were struck with curiosity as to the various wars and struggles that entangled Asia Minor leading to the rules and regimes that have inhabited the intersection of the world in modern Istanbul. Netflix had an interesting historical presentation of the Ottoman Empire with a focus on Mehmed II that details how the Sultan empowered his forces with relentless raids on the impenetrable walls of Constantinople. They eventually took the city and rules the regions for centuries.  While watching Rise of Empires: Ottoman I was struck by the number of messages that were sent by couriers, or delegation of one side directly to the leaders of the competing side.   These were soldiers who had but one task; deliver a message from the leader in its exact form and for its intended purpose.  Mehmed II or Emporer Constantine were the originators of the message, and the courier its delegate.    Delegation is birthed from the Latin delegere and according to latin-is-simple.com  carries the idea that you are assigning and entrusting an appointed trustee to carry out the wish and desire of the original delegator. Delegation is not a modern concept, it has been used in organizational growth since the beginning of time. In the midst of a time of overwhelming demand on his leadership, there is a story about Moses who was warned by his father-in-law, “‘This is not good!’ Moses’ father-in-law exclaimed. ‘You’re going to wear yourself out—and the people, too. This job is too heavy a burden for you to handle all by yourself.’” Leadership is an infinite cycle of emotional labor.  Leadership is the constancy of assessment (seeing, hearing, and experiencing), deliberation, decision, evaluation, rinse and repeat. There is not a clocking in and clocking out of leadership which is I why the statement “rest is resistance” is an imposing idea.  The leader must artificially will moments of sabbatical (minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months) in the crevices of leadership. A strategy for healthy leadership is found in the power of healthy delegation. There is a difference between delegation and abdication. Whereas delegation aligns with trust, equipment, and empowerment, abdication is the intention to leave a post or a task with no desire to return; a resignation. Abdication does not require equipment, training, thought, care, empathy, or intentionality.  Abdication simply wipes its hands of responsibility and walks away, at the ready to blame any nearby candidate for the failure that it will spawn…and spawn it will.   One of the privileges and massive responsibilities in leadership is to delegate well. Three elements will stock your toolbox for healthy delegation. First, setting clear expectations which can be found in writing things down. Is it a role or a task that you will be asking someone else to complete for you?  Write it down, record a video, and capture that role or task in such a way that will scale easily to those you wish to delegate.   Violate this step, and you will cascade downhill into the bitter valley of abdication. Just last week we had a couple of clients that were “sort of not documenting their processes” and it was causing unnecessary delay in important hiring of new team members that would ultimately bring these leaders freedom. Their homework was easy; “Record two videos by Friday of the tasks you are going to ask this person to do.”  That’s it.  No excuses…write it, record it, video it. Second, build a simple scorecard of what success looks like.  All humans will ask at some point, “Am I doing this right?”  Give a simple checklist of “here are the five, or eight things that will need to be done each week to ensure that your role is airtight.” A scorecard is what winning looks like. Build your first version, and then adapt as time progresses.   Finally, build repetitive, predictable, and meaningful communication points. Repetitive, pre-determined meetings times are your friend. Each person who has been delegated to must have time on their leader’s calendar that is pre-set and has a pre-determined set of questions that are aligned to the role, scorecard, and culture of what is being asked. We have regular (twice monthly) check-ins with our team members in addition to a weekly team meeting, a weekly coaches meeting, and every-other-monthly vision days.   The goal is forced conversation.  In the absence of information the mind makes things up; a wandering mind is good for innovation, but not delegation.   Clarity wins, and clarity demands repetition. Are you abdicating?  Or are you delegating? Abdication brings burden and imprisonment. Delegation brings clarity and freedom.