The Five Levels of Delegation

Delegation is a part of leadership.

Where I find where delegation gets dicey is in one-of-two places:

1. The leader is uncomfortable delegating if the other person does not perform the task in exactly the way the leader would (this is a control issue)

and

2. The leader doesn't not clearly communicate their expectations when they delegate a task or project.

To address the first issue of control, a leader needs to ask themselves:

"Can this person perform this task at least 80% as well as I could?" If so, then the leader needs to let it go and give the person the running room.

To address the second issue of clearly communicating expectations, Michael Hyatt nails it when we talks about 5 levels of delegation:

"Recently, one of my mentees was planning a special event. Last week, he was surprised to discover that someone on his planning team had completed a project that he didn't really authorize. He was clearly frustrated, because he felt the other person had taken more initiative than he was given. After listening to him describe the situation, I finally said, "The fault is not with your team member's action. The problem is that you didn't make your expectations clear when you delegated this task..."

Read more here

Of the 2 issues, which one do you fall into?