In the office today we were having a debate about what really is the number one issue for leaders.

I popped a question on a LinkedIn post to get some answers and it has over a 1000 views already - I reckon there is an issue!

And surprise, surprise the biggest issue coming up so far is…

DELEGATION (or rather the lack of it, and being too busy because of it).

Why is this an issue?

Well, most people are saying that they are too busy. When I see their to do lists and in-trays it makes me feel stressed, let alone them.

So, time is an issue and we don’t have a lot of it. Many people don’t spend enough time with their kids, families, self and therefore start to fall out of love with their business and sometimes even their partners too.

Often, I find that even when someone is very good at the task in hand, the fact that there are a million other things to do means that they are not performing it very well anyway.

Then there are your employees…

What do you pay them for if not to support you in getting things done? The problem is that if we don’t delegate, then we are under-utilising people, undermining people and probably demotivating them too.

And then, of course, once you have ‘trained’ them that you will do all the work, it is hard to get them to engage in anything except maybe chatting round the water cooler.

So why so we then get annoyed at them and think they are lazy and rubbish when, in fact, it is our fault?

The cost of not delegating is far higher than your own busy-ness. It is your own business!

So why don’t people delegate well (or at all)?

The big things that come up are:- I don’t want to put upon them, or I don’t think they will do as good a job as me, or it takes too long to show them and to get them up to speed so I may as well do it myself.

That might be true, but then you will never be able to step back. This is a short-term view and you need to sometimes go through a little “pain” to get the gain, would you agree?

Then there is the biggy …… “IT DOESN’T WORK!!! The staff get it wrong and don’t do it and I end up doing it in the end”.

But, here’s a little secret - it doesn’t work because you have set them up to fail.

The way you Think and the way you Behave has a massive impact on what you and they do. So if you create an environment that is set up for you to do it all, how can your team get a look in? The trouble is, people are often terrified of letting go!

How can you change this and set yourself and your team up for success?

In order for you to feel confident about delegating you need to do two things:

1. Make sure they are technically capable

2. Make sure they are confident in making decisions

The technically capable bit takes a bit of effort, I agree, but is the simple bit. Fairly

transactional.

BUT…

The second part is something that we have to get right before we can trust that things won’t fall apart. Their confidence…

If you think about it, it makes sense. It is often not that that they can’t do it, it is a number of other thought processes that stop them from grasping the mettle. They may be unsure of what you are trying to achieve. They may be unclear about what good looks like.

A big concern is often that they are unsure if you would back them up if they did something slightly different from your way of doing it. They may fear you will berate them in front of others.

It is all that mindset stuff that stops people from stepping up.

So, if you can create the conditions of trust and support and give your team the opportunity to start making decisions with your back up then they feel safe and can spread their wings.

As soon as that happens, then you can truly start to trust and step back. You will know that they know what the plan is, what needs to happen and how to do it.

They will be confident to get on with it and willing to take the risk (sensible) rather than knocking on your door all the time to ask you what to do next.

So, delegation, the dirty word, is actually a massively important concept to get right, but there are a few things you need to get right in your set up before it can work as well as it needs to.

You need to create the conditions for success so that you Think differently, Behave differently so that you can Do differently.

If you want to find out more about how to do that for you and your business then join us in our Purpose Profit Freedom Masterclass next week where we will work out how to give back you more time, bring the love back into the business and make more money.

We will dive into the elements of THINK BE DO leadership, so you can see how you can make the changes you need.

Register here: https://thinkbedoleadership.lpages.co/purpose-profit-freedom/