Do you find it difficult to delegate? If you answered ‘yes’ or ‘sometimes’, trust that you are not alone.

Every talented business leader struggles to effectively delegate. The reason? Leaders have high standards and want to ensure everything is done right. This doesn’t mean it’s OK to do everything yourself.

Effective delegation is a vital leadership attribute.

We need to develop the self-awareness to recognize the thought patterns that hold us back from handing off tasks to other people.

There are two big excuses that commonly prevent leaders from delegating tasks to others:

• Delegation takes time. You do it yourself because you have not yet trained your people, and it would take less time in the moment to act alone. This might save time in the short term, but sooner or later you will pay the price. Start with smaller projects and tasks—use them as building blocks and then train up to the larger projects. At the beginning of training, check in—often! Correct the small things early in the process and it will be painless and less time consuming than if you wait until problems become larger. Create a regular schedule for check-ins and do not allow yourself or others to get too busy and miss the check-in. You need to stick to a process to delegate and get the right stuff done. Often this is where a leadership time management weakness can be spotted. Those leaders need a PowerWeek System to discover the freedom of not being paralyzed by all the tasks they have on their list. Plain and simple—if you teach your team better, they will do better, and ultimately you’ll free up your time in the long run.
• Worry about the result. Delegation is not about giving up control over the result. Start all delegation discussions with your expectations of the results. If you can’t define what success looks like, you will not be able to mentor to the goal. Your mentoring should encourage others to courageously experiment; to consciously reflect on lessons learned, and to efficiently adapt to changing conditions. People learn from taking action, from the miscues they make, and from the feedback they receive. Delegation requires self-discipline: you must hold yourself accountable to articulate specific goals, facilitate regular check-ins, and mentor others to ensure the project stays on track. If you do this consistently well, you’ll achieve the results you desire, and expand on the success you could have accomplished alone.

These excuses explain why most leaders carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. The problem is your shoulders are only so big. If you can’t effectively delegate, you set yourself and your business up for failure.

Gone are the days of going it alone. Too much is changing, too fast, for any leader to have all the answers. Today’s leader must learn how to co-create the future—with their team.

Delegation may be a difficult skill to develop, but mastering it will define why others follow you.

Are you still struggling to let go? Contact me, the time invested will help you and your team scale.