Active delegation
The first few months of 2022 hadn't been the easiest for me. I am suffering the consequences of poor delegation.
For context, 2021 was the first time I hired in middle managers and leaders to take over some of the engineering leadership work that I had been holding for the past 6 years. I was simultaneously relieved but also nervous. In my experience, it's impossible to get such major transitions right the first time around - too many habits to change, and too many unknown unknowns.
As I'd predicted, or perhaps because of that prediction, I either didn't delegate enough, or delegated poorly. This was compounded by poor hiring choices on my part, which muddied the causes of poor outcomes even further. 1 thing is clear from the feedback from my team and my own observations - I'm bottlenecking our execution, the rest of the team isn't exercising enough judgement, and execution outcomes are wanting.
As with most matters in my entrepreneurship life, there isn't a playbook that applies directly to my situation, but there are always frameworks distilled by clear thinkers who were also doers. By serendipity, once I recognised poor delegation to be a root cause, I chanced upon this tweet about radical delegation - https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1401598910792011776.
As a leader, how can you
— Shreyas Doshi (@shreyas) June 6, 2021
- Make a major, singular impact
- Truly empower team members
- Grow them with “stretch tasks”
- Create flow for self & others
- Avoid burnout
Answer: Radical Delegation
(note: not for everyone, but game-changing for leaders & teams who are ready for it) pic.twitter.com/C0F1ULOo2N
That helped me decide what to delegate. A related article taught me how to delegate -https://profitfactory.com/360delegation/.
Now, I just need to ask myself a question during my weekly planning session.
"How am I holding my team back, and how can I delegate?"