Learn How to Delegate Effectively

A conversation with Deborah Grayson Riegel and Jasmine LeFlore

Delegating is a leadership skill that benefits you and your team. But determining when and how to delegate which tasks to whom can be overwhelming. And the discomfort many of us feel around assigning responsibilities to others or making requests of our colleagues can lead us to falsely believe it’s easier to just continue doing everything ourselves.

To learn how to delegate in a way that delivers the results you’re hoping for, Amy Gallo spoke with Jasmine LeFlore, an aerospace engineer who wanted to overcome the awkward, difficult parts of delegating so that she could do more strategic work. She and Amy talked to leadership coach Deborah Grayson Riegel, who shared practices to ensure the work gets done and leaves you and the person you delegated to feeling good about the experience.

AMY GALLO: Jasmine, would you say delegation is something you do a lot already or is it something you want to do a lot more of?

JASMINE LEFLORE: I would say both. For my nonprofit, delegation is important. Right now, I have a cofounder and part-time staff. I’ve started an apprentice program, where college students who are studying engineering are teaching students about engineering entrepreneurship. My cofounder and I have been following a framework that has been going very well, but as a founder, cofounder, and executive director, I think my time is well suited to working on the business instead of in the business. Instructing college students to teach this curriculum has been very rewarding. They have fresh eyes and are providing feedback and showing me things that I didn’t even think about when I started developing the framework.

AMY: Deb, what do you think about what Jasmine said in terms of the importance of delegation as well as the challenges that many of us face?

DEBORAH GRAYSON RIEGEL: Jasmine hit the nail on the head. As she delegates, she lightens her workload, crosses off her to-do list, and challenges herself, while improving and increasing her value to the organization. There are benefits to the team as well. And she delegates to her peers. We often think about delegating as something we do with direct reports, but Jasmine is delegating to colleagues, which certainly has some benefits. It makes them feel more trusted or respected. They have the opportunity to learn more skills and collaborate more. You might even get a day off if people know how to do what you do. Jasmine is really focused on the benefits not just to herself, but to the team and the organization.

AMY: The idea that delegation isn’t just good for you is critically important. Research on delegation by women specifically shows that women tend to delegate less. We also tend to feel more anxiety and guilt about doing so, and that’s partly because we see it as a dominant thing to do. Researchers suggest focusing on the benefits of delegating not just for yourself, but for others and how it helps them learn and grow.

DEBORAH: There’s research that shows that when women get feedback from all genders, it tends to be about teamwork and collaboration and less about leadership. I want to be mindful that if we are encouraging anyone to delegate more, that we don’t just think about it as a teamwork and collaboration skill; we should think about it as a leadership skill as well.

JASMINE: I like feedback and I don’t get enough of it. When I do get it, it feels like it’s based on collaboration or being organized, but not necessarily the leadership aspects that I’m showcasing.

AMY: Deb, how is delegation a leadership skill?

DEBORAH: To be a leader, you need to be thinking more strategically and less tactically. You need to enable others to grow, develop, and take things on rather than having your hands in every single thing. For you to become a more visionary and strategic coach who guides other people to do the work, you can’t be doing everything yourself.

AMY: What steps should we take to decide whether or not to delegate a task, a decision, or a responsibility?

DEBORAH: People have some common misconceptions about what to delegate. They think that they should delegate things that are really boring and small. People should think more broadly about what they can and should be delegating. As you think about your own workload, consider what feels routine for you but may not feel routine for somebody that you’re trying to develop. Think about something that is fun for you that you can share with somebody else who might think it’s fun. Think about tasks that other people can clearly do better than you can, tasks that eat up your time and that will develop other people so that you can move on to other things. Of course, there are some things that you just shouldn’t delegate. One example is if somebody delegated something specifically to you because they wanted you to do it; don’t give that to somebody else. Finally, people frequently delegate poorly defined tasks to others when they’re not clear of the expectations. They’re not clear on the goal, on what success would look like, and they pass that on. As you can imagine, it’s a giant game of telephone.

AMY: Jasmine, what tasks are you thinking about delegating?

JASMINE: I’m starting a new project where I’m going to be helping create some virtual interactive demos for our products. I’m coming up with one-page descriptions of what our technology does, the benefits of it, and who it serves. I’m starting with one of our key products but delegating the rest to our younger or early-career engineers is something I’m looking forward to.

AMY: Deb, do you recommend that you either do a piece of the work or do an example of the work before you delegate it? What prep do you need to do before a task is actually ready to pass off?

DEBORAH: You want to think about how they are going to learn what it is you’re looking for. Some steps might include being really clear about what you’re expecting in terms of the outcome. You might even provide an example of a successful outcome. Distinguish between whether you’re looking for a certain outcome or a range of acceptable outcomes. You want to be really clear whether the outcome has to look exactly like this or, once you’ve agreed on what success looks like, there’s a range of possibilities. In addition to providing examples of what it would look like when done well, you want to clarify how the task you’re delegating fits into the big picture. A lot of people miss that: putting it in the context of why it matters. Jasmine said she’s delegating part of something. How are you going to evaluate progress, process, and outcomes? Those are the things that can really help set up somebody for success.