Success Secrets and Stories
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Success Secrets and Stories
Harnessing the Power of Delegation for Leadership Excellence
Embark on a journey of leadership transformation as we navigate the delicate art of delegation with the wisdom of Dr. Durst's - Management by Responsibility. The dance between a leader's psychological stance and their approach to sharing tasks can make or break a team's synergy and output. We dissect the nuances of five psychological categories, from the bystander approach of the 'unconscious' manager to the visionary 'responsible' leader who champions accountability and team growth. Understanding these dynamics is crucial, and we're here to guide you through it, with insights also pulled from a thought-provoking article by the Indeed editorial team. You'll leave this episode equipped to craft an effective delegation strategy that strengthens your team and boosts productivity.
Turning to the practical ramifications of assigning authority in the workplace, we delve into how skilled delegation serves as a catalyst for both productivity and employee development. By sharing real-life examples, we showcase how task distribution does more than lighten your workload—it sets the stage for career progression and organizational resilience. If you're eager to build a leadership framework that cultivates potential and fosters success, this episode holds the keys to unlocking that potential.
Presented by John Wandolowski and Greg Powell
Well, hello everyone and welcome to Successful Secrets and Stories. I'm your host, Alman Alasky, and I'm here with my co-host and friend, Brett Powell. Brett, hey, everybody, yeah, and we're here today and we're going to talk about a concept that I know I've overused. In my other podcasts I have used the word key concept way too much, but the trouble is that this subject that we're going to be talking about today the psychology concept and how it works with delegation is really the pivot point on whether you understand management by responsibility or not. And delegation, its nuances, are something that we want to try to describe. So Dr Durst, when he was developing the management by responsibility program, used the psychology terms of unconscious, self-protective, conformist, achievement and responsible. We're going to maintain that same list, and today, when we're talking about delegation, we're going to actually talk about all five of those kind of categories at the same time, Because I think when you're talking about delegation, it isn't either you do or you don't, it isn't a yes or no kind of answer. There is gray, but there's not a lot of gray. A lot of people do it wrong. Doing delegation correctly, I think, is what we wanted to expand on during this podcast, and so Dr Durst in his first description of the unconscious management style or management approach is management by default.
Speaker 1:Delegation is do not delegate. Staff should know what they're supposed to do, so I'm not going to delegate. It's non-participative. The second category, which is self-protective, is management by dictatorship. Which is self-protective is management by dictatorship, and delegation is kind of interesting for a dictator. They delegate only functions that they don't like. Creativity and decision-making is discouraged and it creates the fear of making a mistake, because a dictator is not happy with mistakes. A conformance is the management of status quo, so delegation seldom delegates effectively. A conformance is the management of status quo. Delegation is seldom delegates effectively. Characteristics of delegation also are unable to assign realistic priorities or meaningful tasks and creates a staff that wants to be rescued. I love Dr Durst's description of that, but when a staff is in those kind of environments they're really looking to go somewhere else.
Speaker 1:And then my least favorite, but the one that I'm probably most familiar with with people in terms of delegation when they're doing it wrong, is the achievement management approach by crisis and delegation is they don't delegate specifics. It's last minute delegation, changing the priorities and improper planning Bottom line. It creates the sense of urgency, confusion and frustration. These managers are often called self-centered, at the same time of management by crisis. Now their delegation skills, or the lack of, is really the most obvious thing. Whenever you have somebody in this category, Any praise that happens within a department they take for themselves. So these individuals are famous for stealing your information and if there's a mistake, it is going to be somebody on the staff or somebody else, but it's never going to be that individual.
Speaker 1:Now, the responsible leader, the management by responsibility leader, is more of a developer. Delegation is delegating the maximum authority, functions and priorities with staff aware of the capacities and capabilities and motivations for his staff his or her staff and creates teamwork, harmony and accountability. Somebody who's actually acting as a responsible leader really understands their staff to the point where they know where they're pushing them and they usually try to encourage them. They're going to make stretch goals and if you hear stretch goals, if it's the previous category of somebody who is in the achievement category, they're just trying to dump. But if you have a stretch goal with somebody who understands responsibility, they're trying to help you grow. With somebody who understands responsibility, they're trying to help you grow. So those five categories speaks to the psychology of leadership, but delegation is pretty straightforward. Greg, I think you found an interesting article that describes delegation in a little bit of a better format. Why don't you help us with delegation?
Speaker 2:Thanks, john. Yes, our friends at the Indeed editorial team have come up with another good one. This one's a delegation of authority a definition and a guide. This was back July 21st 2022.
Speaker 2:So knowing how and when to assign tasks to the right people is an incredible skill. An effective manager can delegate authority to team members and follow up accordingly to ensure they complete each task as expected, and this article will define delegation of authority and explore how to use it. In a normal workplace, delegation of authority is simply this it's the process of transferring responsibility for a task to another employee. So, as a manager, you can typically transfer responsibility to any of your direct team members. That employee may then decide to delegate some of those responsibilities among their members, if necessary to help get the task accomplished. But the purpose of delegating authority is to ensure a productive and well-functioning workplace. Delegating authority is to ensure a productive and well-functioning workforce. If you do it wisely, this process can benefit you, your employees and the business as a whole.
Speaker 2:So what is delegation of authority? Let's start off with increased productivity, right? That's what you would hope to believe. It allows employees to complete work faster, since tasks are spread out among a group of individuals rather than one person trying to do everything, all those necessary steps. You also get continuity because, let's say, you're busy, you're busy doing other tasks, you've got other work to do right, or you're absent from work. Other employees can complete some or all of your duties to make sure that things keep moving in your absence right and moving effectively compliantly. One that's really close to my heart is employee development. So when you delegate tasks to your team members, they get a chance to improve their skills and demonstrate their capabilities. Maybe it's leadership, maybe it's just certain administrative tasks to get done, but it's something that really helps them grow as an employee. Employee motivation. Employees may be more driven to perform at their best when they're trusted with new responsibilities and this is a key word trusted to be delegated to, to get things done. It makes them feel really special, very valued.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think one of the things that was said previously in that description was you're trying to share those responsibilities, you're trying to make it as a team, and these are the skills in helping delegation. So, if you're really being an effective leader, you're trying to develop people. Those are the things that you're looking for, and motivation and development is something that you might have to highlight. That you're trying to develop people, those are the things that you're looking for, and motivation, development is something that you might have to highlight that you're trying to do and give them the opportunity to say that they might need more support in order to be successful. But those two key elements are really the essence of doing delegation the right way.
Speaker 2:That's good, john, and it goes hand in hand with career growth opportunities. Employees see that as well. Delegating tasks to lower level employees provides them with the experience and the actual skills that they need for potential promotions within the organization. So don't you want to be that manager that's known for developing employees, motivating employees? You can do that through delegation skills. So there's some different ways to delegate authority, several of them, and again we're talking about transferring responsibilities from yourself to employees, and it really depends on the needs of your workplace.
Speaker 2:You can use the following types of delegation authority to assign tasks to various people on your team. So there's the departments, right. You can delegate the supervision of a particular department in your group to another employee. So if you're a CEO taking it at a high level here and you can delegate authority over the entire marketing department to the marketing director. Or you can delegate by projects. You can assign an employee or a group of employees to complete a specific project from start to finish. And again, using that marketing example, the marketing director could assign an advertising campaign to that project manager who assembles a team of copywriters and designers.
Speaker 2:I think you kind of get the drift. The projects can be delegated to as well, and then the one that I think is really incredibly important is decision making. I mean, that's when we're talking about real delegation, giving people the opportunity to make decisions. So you can give one of your employees the power to make certain decisions, so you can focus on other types of them. For example, in that marketing director, you can delegate authority to that assigned assistant marketing director to hire people in their department. But decision-making is really really key. It not only lifts the load from you, but it gives an opportunity and responsibility to someone else.
Speaker 1:You have an example of where that was actually applied that maybe it would be worthwhile to talk about.
Speaker 2:Thank you, john, I do so. Some years ago I was working at a company and we had gotten purchased by a huge company, a big conglomerate in our industry. And I remember I was working with my boss and he said, greg, we're going to do some we call HR planning back in those days, and it was really each mini company, small company, was presenting their best and brightest throughout the different disciplines and divisions of the company to be considered for expatriate assignments, promotional assignments, et cetera. So it's pretty cool stuff. But my boss said, greg, I want you to gather the information, I want you to use this template, I want you to arrange it like this, I want you and me to walk through it. And at first I kind of thought well, it's not like he's kind of dumping on me a little bit. He wants somebody to do all this work and then he's going to make the presentation. I said that's okay, I'm a team player, I'll learn something here. And so I took it with. He said oh, by the way, greg, the CEO would like to have you join me overseas in New York. I'm sorry to present this to our different sister companies overseas.
Speaker 2:So John and I talked about this before. Not only did I put the information together. I was in the room and the key people, decisions were being made, and that was priceless. It was just an incredible experience, and at that point again, we've been purchased. My job was going away. I was looking for other opportunities, and it's just no coincidence. The next job I got was a director of human resources planning at a big retailer company in the city, and so there's no question that experience endeared me to that role, and so sometimes, when you might be thinking maybe they're dumping on me, give it another thought. Maybe someone's really investing in you and that delegation is going to do you well in the long term.
Speaker 1:And it was a stretch goal and you had the opportunity. You never met the CEO before or after that event either, right.
Speaker 2:I got to know him, but not like we were bosom buddies. We weren't doing much together.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you did for me. It's usually whenever I had the opportunity to talk to the president or CEO, it was in and out. When you're in the room, you have to understand that not a lot of people get access. On occasion, I'd be with the president and CEO and I'd also be with the trustees or the board. All these people are getting the opportunity to ask questions of who I am and what is it that I do, and they're getting a little bit of background. There is that familiarity and that opportunity, and sometimes it's nothing more than having a seat at the table.
Speaker 2:It is John, it is exposure, it's everything, it's everything, right.
Speaker 1:Right, having that it's everything. Is that right? Right, and and if a good manager understands that they're delegating but they're also sharing, uh, in terms of the spotlight, that's that is the purpose of delegation. That that is when it's done, right. So when I talk about mbr and I, I have somebody that asks well, what is it that you're looking for? There's two lines you take responsibility for whatever occurs, whether you like it or not. That's the essence of being a responsible person, to understand that you're not trying to finger point somebody else. And then the other element is whether you know how to delegate and develop staff. Other element is whether you know how to delegate and develop staff. So if somebody is supposed to be teaching and somebody is supposed to be developing staff and they don't really know how to give them access or how to delegate, they're handicapped. They're not really going to be able to do the job that they're supposed to be doing.
Speaker 1:I wrote the book. We're doing this podcast. If anything you can hear from what we're trying to describe Delegation is not trying to give away some of your responsibility to just anybody and then it happens by accident. That isn't the design. You are giving a piece of yourself. You're giving a piece of your authority and you're giving that piece of trust and what you're trying to get in return is you're trying to help that person to understand that you're giving these things of yourself. And what I usually try to do is I had the people who were reporting to me present to the CEOs and to the presidents and to the boards, so that they would be known not me, because all my predecessors would normally steal the information. So, like in your example, greg, when you had the uh, the executive giving the presentation, that's probably what a lot of people expected me to do. But I think my best example is when I had the project managers and I had the construction job project for the most part are very portable, they're very, they're very dynamic in terms of positions. They can be working for a different organization or a different assignment or a different company from year to year, because projects have a beginning, a middle and an end and quite often a lot of organizations don't have another project behind it and they're off to another assignment. So, having that exposure and having that ability to try to communicate what they know and how they were able to do it, they build up a little bit of their own skills. They have access. Some of the forums that they were able to give presentations were public forums, so they were also broadcast and it helped them. Those project managers were giving the kind of exposure that they should have gotten from others and they really did thrive in that environment.
Speaker 1:We had a great team and it's very rare that you can say that you were on time, under budget with multi-million dollar projects and we were for the entire length of time of the five years of construction. We were always on the mark. That wasn't because of me, that was because of the team that we had put together. So praising someone is different than just trying to give them a certificate or a piece of paper or a 2% increase. Giving them the opportunity to grow, the opportunity to actually move beyond that position and preparing them for their next job of their next promotion. That's when you're doing your job right and that really the tool that is the most effective is delegation.
Speaker 1:So I hope that makes some sense, um, but I do have to get. I do have to give you an example of when I did it wrong and it happens. Um, I hired a supervisor and you know he he did a very good job in terms of interviewing and interviewing was a very good skill Uh, he said all the right things, but when he started the job, there was issues that were on the job and I didn't understand why there was a conflict with the staff. So I asked the question of well, what is it that's the problem and you know you were doing a similar assignment he said, yeah, I never liked that job. I don't like the time, I don't like the people, I don't like the assignment. I really want to get this supervisory job so I can be a director like you and, bottom line, I can delegate all my responsibilities and I don't have to do anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it doesn't work that way and, to make a long story short, I had to let him go. He had the impression that he could advance because he just had a title and he wanted the responsibility. He had done some studying and he had some paperwork. Degrees and paperwork and certifications can only do so much to tell you that you're intelligent or you understand the job and the requirements of the job. There was a lot that he didn't understand and his image of what he thought management should be was something that I couldn't correct. So that was one of those 90 days, 120 days, and we're just not on the same page and I had to let him go. I still feel bad about that, as you can tell from my conversation, because I shouldn't have hired somebody, that I had some question marks.
Speaker 1:And this is a cautionary suggestion to leaders that you wait for the right person instead of trying to compromise with somebody who had some of the skills but not quite all of the skills and you think you can teach them up. It doesn't work that way. When you have positions that are requiring delegation and really taking a commitment to help the people that you work with, it doesn't matter if you're working with technical positions and for me I'm in facilities for the majority of my career. I worked with housekeeping, I worked with project teams, I worked with janitors, I worked with boiler operators, I dealt with mechanics If you don't understand the trade and you don't respect the people that are doing those works, those jobs, and help them to be as successful as you can, you don't understand delegation.
Speaker 1:So it's really really hard for somebody to understand MBR and can't apply delegation correctly, because if they do it correctly, it's the small task as well as the kind of task that you go to the chairman and to the president. That delegation has to be where you're engaged with the person and you're trying to help them be successful. I hope that makes some sense. So, greg, I think we've talked about delegation enough. What are we going to be talking about in our next podcast?
Speaker 2:So, John, next time we're going to continue our discussion on the important subject of conflict resolution.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's going to be an interesting conversation. Conflict and delegation are tough subjects in some real detail and I think we'll have some fun with it. So, if you like what you heard, um, my book is available on amazoncom and lulucom building your leadership toolbox success secrets and stories, podcasts on what you're listening, thank you, and also other popular podcast formats. Dr Durst's books and his MBR program is available at successgrowthacademycom. On our Buzzsprout website you can also click on a little support for buy me a cup of coffee and you can give us a comment. And to help with that process, we also want to give you our emails. My email is Wando75.JW at gmailcom and Greg, I can be reached at gpowell374 at gmailcom.
Speaker 1:And the music is brought to you by my grandson. So we want to hear from you. Give us a word. Thanks, greg, it was fun. Thanks, john, as always. Next time, next time, next time.