The Introvert Leader

How to Delegate

I used to delegate just to make my life easier. I wasn’t thinking about the team. I was thinking about me and my needs. It turns out I was wasting a golden opportunity to develop my team.

Delegation is one of the most underrated skills in leadership. Done right, it builds trust, grows your team, and frees you up to lead at a higher level. In this episode, I’ll share mistakes to avoid, a framework to know what to delegate, and real strategies to help you get better at it.


Timestamp

1:19 — Storytime: A real example of how delegating a major task helped a team member grow and eventually land a promotion.

4:02 — What is Delegation: Why delegation isn’t just about saving time and how it actually grows your leadership.

4:59  — Why Delegation Matters: The four big reasons delegation is critical for leadership success and team development.

7:30 — Delegation Mistakes: From dumping only boring tasks to forgetting to follow up, avoid these traps if you want to delegate well.

13:50 — How To Delegate Without Losing Trust: Four simple but powerful strategies to delegate without losing trust or dropping the ball.

19:27  — Should I Delegate This?: Ask yourself these questions to instantly know if you should delegate a task.

21:38 — Challenge for Listeners: Delegate one task this week that helps someone grow. Free up your time and give your team a chance to stretch.


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 Hello, this is your host, Austin Hopkins, and welcome to the Introvert Leader Podcast.

I used to hate delegating at the beginning of my leadership career. I never delegated anything. I, I didn't, I, I did everything myself. I thought I can do it better myself. And delegation kind of sounds lazy. Like if you're a good leader, you just kind of, you know, do it all and put it all on your shoulders.

And that didn't work at all, to be honest with you. So then I thought, okay, I'm gonna start delegating a little bit. Just the stuff I don't want to do. I'm gonna give it to my team, give 'em the crap work, they'll figure it out, right? And I thought that might work. It didn't. And then I realized that delegation is actually a golden opportunity to help your team develop, grow in ways they never had to before.

Because you're giving them work that they normally wouldn't be exposed to. Stuff that would be maybe easy for you could be a challenge for them. So I want to talk about that today. I wanna talk about delegation. I wanna share with you kind of my journey with. Being someone who didn't really like delegation, to someone who totally embraced it.

I wanna share some stories with you. I'm gonna give you some mistakes to avoid, and then I'm also gonna give you some strategies to make sure that you delegate without losing the trust of your team. So as we jump into it, I want to kick things off with a story. So a few years ago, I took over a high net worth banking team.

They were essentially the high net worth personal bankers to our super wealthy, mass affluent customers, people that had millions of dollars in the bank. And as you might imagine, those kind of people needed to send money. Out of their accounts, sometimes multiple times a week, sometimes multiple times a month, and they needed a way to do that without having to come into the physical location.

And up until that point, that wasn't an option. Our team didn't do that. There was no guide procedures or any way to actually do that. So our clients were getting pissed that they had to come in. So one of my employees. Reached out to me and said, Hey Austin, I think we need to change this. And it was one of my top performing people on the team, the person that I trusted the most when I had, you know, little things that I needed their help on or get their opinion.

And Kayla was a rockstar and had many, many relationships without the credit union. And so she said, Hey Austin, I think we should create a procedure, a, a, a routine, a guideline, um, if you will, on how to send out wires remotely. So this was gonna allow our clients to send money remotely from their home without having to go into the branch.

And so she came to me with this idea, and at first I thought, you know, I should really own this, right? This is a new procedure. I'm newer to the team. I should really take this on. And then I pause and I thought, is Kayla capable of doing this? And I thought, well, she is the one that came to me with the idea.

She already kind of put a stab at it and did a rough draft of what the guideline could look like. Why wouldn't I give it to her? So I decided to let her run with that project, and this was a big deal for her. So she had to meet with lots of different business partners. She had to meet with compliance and legal, and our wire room and our branch staff, and she had to make sure everyone was understanding what the guidelines were and also to make sure that we were in compliance.

And so she spent a couple of months working on this and she did a fantastic job. She absolutely killed it. I saw her get out of her comfort zone. I saw her. Create something that our team desperately needed and that our clients really, really wanted. And it ended up being a slam dunk. I mean, it was literally a perfect guideline, a perfect worksheet that kind of walked us through and really set us up for success and, and growing that team.

And then I noticed, you know, just within six months later from that, Kayla was tapped on the shoulder for a promotion, making more money, bigger impact, more responsibility, and I. I don't wanna say it's because of that, but I will say I do think that put her in a great position and it showed to the people that were gonna be hiring her, that she was capable of more.

And I was tempted in the very beginning to kind of do that myself. Right. I told you, I, I wasn't sure if, if she could handle it, but I took a little risk and gave it to her and I'm so glad I did. Because here's what the key to delegation is. It's allowing your team to do things that you would maybe normally do.

That is interesting to them, that also stretches them. So it's all about kind of creating a win-win. It's not about just freeing up time for yourself. So. I wanna jump into it today, and I wanna start by kind of just defining what delegation is. What I think delegation is, it's the act of giving specific tasks, projects, or different work to your team.

It's not just dumping the shit on them that you don't want to do, but it's really finding an opportunity to get those people out of their comfort zone, to take 'em from A to B, to get them growth in a way that they normally wouldn't do. And it also, at the same time, allows you to stay high level and focus on the macro instead of the micro.

And really that's what leadership is about, right? It's not about you doing the individual tasks and being the one that has your hands on everything, but it's you guiding, facilitating, right? You are the. Maestro, they're playing the instruments. You're leading the orchestra, right? So you're not the one playing the instruments, but you're kind of leading the orchestra.

You're making sure that every instrument's in tune, that all your teammates are working together. And I, I really think that's what delegation is. And it's something, like I said, that I haven't always been comfortable with, but I wanna tell you why I think delegation matters, why I started to realize why it's so important.

So. The setup here is that most people think delegation's probably important. Like I'm sure you've heard that before, right? You've heard delegation, you gotta delegate stuff. You can't do it all. And I think that's where most people kind of stop is right? Just right there, right? And they, and they think, okay, delegation's important.

I should probably do it and, and let me try to remember to do it this week. But I think there's some bigger things at stake here. So a couple of reasons why I think delegation is so important. So the first one is you can't really set the vision. Lead the team while you're doing it all. So if you're in the shit, right, if you're the one who's doing the work day in and day out, how could you lead?

How could you have the right perspective If, if your head's down and you're working on the day-to-day minutiae, right? You have to be a little bit removed. I. And you have to have enough bandwidth so that you can set the vision, so that you can spot problems ahead before they come. Right? If your head's down, if you're too in the weeds, you're not gonna be able to do that.

I think another reason why it really matters is it gives the team an opportunity to step up and grow. So this was a really big thing for me. I truly believe your greatest calling, your highest value as a leader. Is developing your team. And if you're not finding ways to grow and develop your team by delegating tasks, I think you're missing out because there are tasks right now that would be exciting for them, that would be cool for them, that would be something that they would be loving to do, but they just don't normally get the exposure to those kind of things.

So why would you deprive them of that? Uh, I think another reason why it really matters is it's the only sustainable way. To make it into a senior leadership role. So I was lucky enough to become a director by the age of 29, and there is no way in hell I could have done that by doing it all. In fact, I can guarantee you I would not have gotten to that step had I tried to do it all myself.

I had to get good people around me to do the stuff that I couldn't do or do the stuff that I needed them to focus on so I could focus on the other stuff. And so if you're the kind of person that wants to move into a senior leadership role, if that's really your goal, your desire. You're gonna have to get comfortable with delegation, and you're gonna have to stop looking at something as a wishlist and as something that you have to do in order to be successful.

I think the last reason why delegation really matters is. It tests your ability to influence. So if I delegate something to someone, can I influence them to get the outcome that I'm looking for? Can I set the expectations in the front? Can I follow up to make sure that happens? And I think it really shows your influence.

You're getting people to do things that are out of their comfort zone that are going to be helpful for the team that are also helping you out as well. So those are a couple of the reasons why I think delegation really, really matters. I wanna transition slightly and I wanna talk about mistakes. So it's easy to make some big mistakes with delegation, right?

You can delegate too much and you can cause some issues. You can delegate too little and cause some issues. You can delegate things the wrong way and piss people off. And so I kind of wanna break down for you a few different mistakes that I would absolutely. Try to avoid, and I've made these mistakes and they're painful.

So trust me on this one, uh, the first one, the first one that stands out to me is only delegating lame stuff you don't wanna do. So I have seen leaders do that. And like I said, I even started by doing that. So, you know, there's some record keeping stuff, there's some data entry stuff, there's some, you know, really boring, tedious work.

Why not just give it to the team? They can handle it. You got more important stuff to do. Well, the fact is, when you're delegating just the lame shit that you don't wanna do. I think you're taking advantage of your team. It comes off as lazy, right? You're a leader. You think you're more important that you need to give the stuff that you don't wanna do to your team.

Personally, I don't think that's a smart move. I think you're gonna piss your team off, and I think you're also kind of taking advantage of them. So another big mistake that people make is they delegate something and then they forget about it. They hope it turns out good. And I don't know if you've ever made that mistake, but it's a big one, right?

You have the best intentions you're gonna delegate. You're gonna get your best person to work on it, but then you never follow up. And then guess what happens? It doesn't turn out good. It's not up to your expectations, and maybe it's even a failure. So I think that's a big one, is not inspecting what you expect.

And so. I think a good way to do that is make sure, of course, that when you're delegating something in the first place, you are giving really clear instructions, right? What do you expect? All that good stuff. But then you're also following up later on, you're checking back in. It doesn't mean that you're hovering over them or you're watching or micromanaging, but it does mean that you're periodically checking in.

How are things going? Let me know what's been going on with that project recently. Are you running into any roadblocks? Is there anything I can help with? Really casual questions that are going to kind of open up the conversation and really let you peer into what's going on in the mind of your employee.

Are they handling this? Are they stressing out? You really need to make sure that you're there for them and that they have support, especially if it's something that's new to them that's outta their comfort zone, that's bigger. Now, if it's something they think you can handle, obviously you can dial that back, right?

You're confident they can handle it. You can still do some periodic check-ins, but maybe it's not as frequent. So that's another big mistake that I, I, I encourage you not to make. So I want to move on to what I think is the last mistake, and it's either delegating too much or it's delegating. Too little.

So if you delegate too much, you run the risk of pissing off your team or messing up important work that you really shouldn't have delegated. You can also run the risk of delegating too little and what happens with that, right? Burnout for you, uh, slowed progress. Um, and so here are a couple of signs of each.

Here is three signs that show you you're not delegating enough. And I have three signs for you that are gonna show you that you're delegating maybe. Too much. So let's start with too much. Here's a sign you might be delegating too much. Your team always tells you they are too busy for any new work. Have you ever done that?

Where you come up to your team and you're like, Hey, I was wondering if you might have some capacity to help me with something, and immediately they're like, oh, I'm too busy. I can't do it. I don't have any time. I, I'm super, super busy. I'm slammed. And you're like, I don't know if that's true. And a lot of times that might be your employee just automatically responding with.

No, because they know you're just gonna be dumping some shit on their plate that they don't really have time for, or that's not really valuable. Another sign you might be delegating too much is that you might lose touch with the actual work. So how can you lead a team if you're not aware of their challenges, of the obstacles, of the things they're working on, the big problems, what's actually happening?

So if you become too disconnected, you actually start to lose your effectiveness as a leader. So it's walking that balance between being. Connected to the team by not delegating too much, but it's also delegating enough to where you're getting some advantages yourself, you know, opening up bandwidth, et cetera.

I think the, the last, you know, obvious sign that you might be delegating too much is your team's truly over capacity. Maybe it's not them telling you, but you can just tell they're back-to-back meetings. They have too much and are you giving them too much? Are you giving them too much work? Even if it's, you know, good work stuff that can grow them, get 'em outta their comfort zone if you're giving them too much.

Being over capacity is a problem, and you know, people's effectiveness starts to diminish. They're not their best. And so I think that's a couple of things you gotta watch out for. Maybe you're delegating too much. And now here are a couple of signs that you may not be delegating enough. So the first one is you're spending more time in the micro instead of the macro.

I said that in the beginning of the episode, but I need to say it again. As a leader, it can be so tempting to have your head down. You know, you wanna rub shoulders with the team and really have your head down in the weeds and making sure that you're really helping the team out. And I have made that mistake.

But at the end of the day, a leader needs to be looking out ahead. They need to have their eyes focused on the future, where the team's going, what they're gonna need, what are the problems that are coming, what are the headwinds that are coming down the line? They shouldn't only be focused on the now. So if you're finding that you're spinning way too much on the microbe.

It could mean you're not delegating enough. Another one is maybe you've noticed, but maybe your team is bored or unchallenged or not engaged. A lot of times that means they're not getting the kind of work they should and they're not being challenged, and so how can you challenge 'em? You can delegate stuff that would get them outta their comfort zone.

The work that you maybe even take for granted that's easy for you could be so exciting and outta the comfort zone and new and shiny for one of your teammates, and so it's up to you to find those opportunities and assign them to the right people. Right. So the next sign you may not be delegating enough is that you're over capacity.

If you're finding that you don't have enough time to do the things that you know you need to do, you're over capacity. So what are your options? Your options are you need to delegate something or obviously get rid of something off your plate. And you know, you don't want the important things to suffer, right?

So if you're not able to make your meetings with your team or one-on-one, or fulfill the commitments that you've made to your team, that's a problem. That means you're over capacity and maybe you need to start delegating some of the things that don't require your attention, that your team could benefit from.

I think the last sign you may be delegating too little is that you're the bottleneck. If everything has to come through you, if you have to approve everything and sign off on everything, and you have to be the one to have eyes on everything, you're becoming a bottleneck. And maybe it's time to start delegating some of those tasks, some of those responsibilities to people on your team and trusting that they can take care of that.

Training them ahead of time, of course, but trusting they have the skills and that you've given them the. Knowledge to be able to handle the stuff that's important. So we talked about some of the mistakes. Now I wanna give you the strategies. I want to just give it to you straight. How do you actually delegate stuff without losing trust?

And it's really simple. There's four different ways that I have found that work for me to delegate like a pro. So I'm gonna get into 'em here. I. So the first one is make it a win-win. This is the most important one, and that's why I'm covering it first, making delegation. A win-win is the pro move. So most people, like I said, they delegate to help themselves out.

Kind of a selfish activity, right? How do I get these things off my plates and my team could do it so that I can do stuff I want to do? I don't have enough time for me, it's me. I'm thinking about I, I, I, me, me, me. And I think that is a mistake. Again, as a leader, we should always be thinking about what can we be doing for our teams.

It's not about us. In fact, the less I think about my needs and what I want, the better my team does. I know that sounds weird, but that's the reality. The more I'm putting my focus on what is my team feeling, what do they want? What do they need? They move faster, they move further, and I feel better as well.

So make it a win-win. So how do you do that? I want you to imagine a Venn diagram. You have three circles. In the first circle, you have the work that helps your team grow. These are the tasks that get them outta their comfort zone, that give them exposure to new things. In the next circle, you have the stuff you don't wanna do.

Maybe it's low value, maybe it's stuff that's too micro and you should be looking macro. And in the middle circle where they intersect is that sweet spot. So how do you find work that can help them grow that you don't need to be doing? That's an amazing fit for both of you guys. And that's really what delegation is.

And I can't give you the answer because your work is your work and you know that more intimately than anyone. But I guarantee you, if you took a couple minutes and you thought of, what are the things that I can do to help my team grow and what are the things that are just kind of sucking my energy? And if you could find a way to overlap those, oh, you're gonna be killing it.

So. That's the first one. Make it a win-win. Really always try to remember how could I delegate this in a way that would help my team? And sometimes it's not always obvious. Sometimes you have to find a way to connect the work that you're asking 'em to do, to what they wanna do long term. And, and, and that takes some practice, right?

You might need to think about, well, how does them doing this data entry project help them get to their long-term goal? And it may not be obvious at first, but maybe you have to start to realize, well eventually they wanna be, you know, in a program manager role. And in order to do that. They have to have a clear understanding of data management and data collection and all that good stuff.

And so maybe this would be a great little, you know, way for them to dip their toe into that and get some exposure. And so that's how I'd probably frame it to them when I was introducing that work. The next one is Golden Rule, so I want you to put yourself in your employee's shoes. Would you want this work delegated to you?

If the answer is no, I would strongly suggest that maybe you don't delegate that to them. Put yourself in their shoes, right? Would you want to have this delegated? If not, don't do it. I think that's a big one for leaders is if they just took one extra second and thought, hmm. Is this the best thing for my employee?

How are they gonna feel if I delegate this project to them? And if you feel like it's not gonna go well, you need to listen to that intuition because at the end of the day, the golden rule's everything, right? We all know the golden rule. Treat others the way you wanna be treated. Do things to your team that you would want them to do to you or you'd want your boss to do.

Do. Pretty simple. Uh, the next one, and I touched on it briefly, is setting clear expectations and ensuring they fully understand the scope of work. So it's not enough to just say, Hey, could you handle this for me, Jessica? Hey Tony, can you work on that project for me? That's not enough. You can't just ask people to do stuff like that.

You have to make sure they fully understand your expectations. 'cause remember, as a leader, everything they do, every output your team has is a direct reflection on you. So are you proud of that reflection? Do you feel like you would want the CEO of the company to see what your team is doing? If the answer is no.

You haven't done a good job setting expectations or really making sure they understand the scope of work. So that's something I'd really, really stress that you do is take an extra couple minutes. I don't care if it's five, 10 minutes. As you introduce something, you're gonna delegate to your team. Make sure that they understand.

So check for understanding, like ask questions. What would you do if this happened? How would you get help if you needed it? When do you think you're gonna be able to have this done? Do you see any potential struggles with getting this done in the timeframe we talked about literally making sure they understand the scope of work and that they are confident in it.

And that has really, really helped me in the past. Just making sure that they understand what's expected of them and then when it comes time to look at the finished project, the finished task, we both know we're gonna be in a good spot because I've asked someone that I trust to do it. I told them what I expect.

I checked in with them. I followed up with them. Boom, we're ready to go. We're made in the shade. Those are the three big ones. I want to give you the bonus, and this is, this is how much I like you. I'm giving you a bonus one. Here's a bonus strategy to make sure that you are delegating like a pro. The key is recognize and.

Praise the efforts of the people that are doing the work for you. So I've said this before, recognition is the superpower, right? If you want somebody to do more of something, you recognize that behavior. So if I delegate something to someone and nobody knows about it and they don't get any credit for it, and it just kind of dies, how do you think that's gonna make them feel?

Do you think they're going to want to take on other stuff from me in the future, or are they going to maybe fight that with resistance? Because what's in it for me? Right? I think at the end of the day, recognition is the key. So if I do delegate something to someone, I wanna recognize the shit out of them.

I wanna praise them in team calls. I wanna send them some recognition awards, some emails. I wanna let 'em leave early. I wanna buy 'em a coffee. I don't care what it is. Find some way to recognize the teammate who's doing something that you delegate to them. They're gonna feel amazing. They're gonna wanna do more of that work for you.

They're gonna do better work. You're gonna feel good. It's just a win-win all around. So those are the big ways that I would make sure that I was delegating work to my team in order to have it received well and make sure that it's a, you know, a success overall. So I wanna transition slightly. I don't know if you've ever run into this situation where you're kind of torn whether or not you should delegate something.

You're like, part of you is like, this kind of sounds like something I could delegate. But then the other part of you is like, eh, maybe I should just do it. And if so, I wanna help you out. I created a framework, a set of questions for questions that you can ask yourself every single time you're kind of faced with the decision.

Do I delegate? Do I not delegate? So here are the four questions. The first one is this, does this task align with my highest value? So if it's not helping the team. Move forward. If you're not driving the team forward by doing this task, this work, I would consider delegating it. Your job is to move the team forward.

That's your highest value. And so if we're working on stuff that's not high value, that doesn't need our attention, that we're not the best person to work on, I. We shouldn't be doing it, we should be delegating. So that's the first question. The second one is this task or project too high stakes. Too high risk or too high profile to delegate.

So there's gonna be some work that you maybe would wanna delegate and you think your team could handle it, but maybe it's high risk, maybe it's something that if it's screwed up. Your asses on the line. Maybe it's something that's high stakes or high profile where, you know, the CEO, the senior leadership team's gonna be looking at this.

In those situations, I would highly suggest that you do the work yourself and don't delegate it. If you feel like you must, though, maybe you have somebody that you work side by side on that project, they're that task. So you don't let 'em do it all by themselves, but you're more involved. Something to keep in mind.

Number three, is there anyone on my team who can effectively handle this task? If there's no one on your team that you think you can trust to delegate this task to, you cannot delegate it to them. And by the way, if that's the case, that might be a red flag that you haven't invested enough time into training and development of your team, and you need to make sure that they're.

Able and capable of handling the, you need to make sure that they're capable of handling those things. So that's a little tip for you there. If you're finding like, Hey, there's no one I can delegate it to, that's a problem. The last one, super important. Does this task give someone on my team an opportunity to grow?

And this one might be just the most important one, right? At the end of the day, I really think delegation is about them. It's actually not about you. It's not really about you saving time. I think that's the obvious thing. But I think the real key here is finding opportunities to help your team get outta their comfort zone to do things that's new, that's novel, that's exciting, that's challenging.

That's what we all want at work, right? That's what we all desire, is to have that kind of work. And so if there is a chance that you could help someone grow on your team. By giving this task to them, by allowing them to run this project. I think you gotta do it. I think you gotta do it for the team, even if it's a little more work for you upfront to set expectations and follow up.

I think it's worth it. So that's my framework. Those are my four questions. Does a task align with my highest value? Is this task too high stakes risk or high profile to delegate? Is there anyone on my team who can effectively handle this task? And number four, does this task give someone on my team an opportunity to grow?

Ask yourself those four questions and I'm confident you won't have any trouble figuring out if you should delegate something. So I wanna wrap things up with a challenge. I wanna give you something you can work on for the next couple of weeks. So I want you to find one thing you can delegate. This week at work, I don't want you to just think about it.

I want you to commit to delegating one thing this week, one thing that you think you could really help somebody grow in their role. One thing that would help somebody get outta their comfort zone. I want you to delegate one thing that you think could really help someone get to the next level. I. You're gonna feel great because you're gonna save some time.

They're gonna feel great because they're gonna get outta their comfort zone and growth. So it's gonna be a win-win. That's what I want you to work on this next couple of weeks. Now, before we wrap up, I wanna give you a quick preview. I'm excited. This month is big because I'm doing my first series. I've never done a series before on the podcast, and I'm.

Going in strong with a confidence series. So the next two episodes are gonna be about confidence. I'm gonna cover every single thing I know about confidence. It's gonna be a two part series. I'm very pumped to give you all the strategies and share with you all the things that I've been able to, to kind learn around confidence, how to maintain it, how to grow it.

So I wanna say thank you so much for listening. Make it a great day.

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