Your team may be more ready than you think. (#316)

The Confident Leader

BOOST YOUR LEADERSHIP IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

Chris, the Chief Revenue Officer, sat in her office on Friday night redoing her director’s forecast – a task that should be done by someone else on her team.

She’d been saying for six months that she’d delegate more once she had time to train someone. 

“Management is not a responsibility. It’s a privilege. And privilege carries an obligation.” – Peter Drucker

This Week’s Edition

They’re ready. The real question is, are you?

Clarify Your Thinking

For Chris, the mental block regarding delegation wasn’t a lack of capable people. 

It was the story she told herself about what it meant to let go. 

Turns out she wasn’t protecting the standard of excellence. She was protecting her identity as the person who knew how to do it.

Classic leadership trap:

• We call it “high standards” or “protecting the brand.” 
• We say we’ll train someone as soon as we find the time. 
• Then we run out of hours. 
• Six months goes by. 
• Being essential gets mistaken for being a leader. 
• The work that could free you stays locked in your calendar.

If perfect execution is the standard, then guess what? Only we can meet it. But we can’t meet it and we know it. If we can’t meet it, then they certainly can’t. 

We lose any leadership leverage available to us because the people around us never get to learn. They don’t develop. You don’t get your time back. This isn’t excellence. 

Old Thinking: I’ll delegate once I have the time to train them properly.

New Thinking: Training them is how I get my time back.

Thoughts Lead to Actions

If someone can do it 80 percent as well as you can, they’re ready. 

While we wait for the perfect moment to train, we redo the work because it isn’t quite right. We take back tasks we said we’d hand off. And we wake up five years later running the exact same playbook, alone.

The cost is real. You teach your team you don’t trust them. You forfeit hours you’ll never get back. You spend your best energy on details instead of strategy. The person who could grow stays dependent. 

Break the cycle:

Step 1: Build the playbook. Write down what you do and why. Just the SOP. If you can’t write it, you can’t teach it.

Step 2: Train on the playbook. Teach the framework. Watch them do it. Let them ask questions. Catch the misses, not the differences.

Step 3: Delegate the task. Hand it off. Set the review cadence. Let them own it.

Step 4: Review and improve. Look at what they’re doing. Feedback on the work, not the person. Tighten the playbook if needed.

Your Power Question: What am I holding right now that I could hand off to someone at 80 percent capability?

Chris handed the next forecast to her director with a conversation, not a redo. “Here’s the playbook. Here’s what I need to see. You own it.” The director’s first attempt was rough in places. Seventy-eight percent, maybe. Chris sent back three specific notes on the gaps. The director fixed it. The next one came in at 82 percent. It was hard for Chris to let go. But she got her Friday night back.

And her director learned she was trusted. That’s the work that compounds.

Boost Your Performance

Learn how to build the delegation framework that gives you your time back in this week’s video.

What’s Your Opinion?

What’s one task you’re holding that your team is ready to own?

I’d love to hear what you’re ready to hand off: robin.pou@robinpou.com

If you are going to be a leader, you might as well be a good one. Don’t let doubt count you out. Have a confident week!

Robin Pou, Chief Advisor and Strategist

We live to make bad leadership extinct so forward this newsletter to others who strive to be confident leaders. 

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What is “The Confident Leader”?

During the Covid-19 Pandemic, I began a video series called “Panic or Plan?” It was designed to equip leaders to navigate the doubt they experienced and to rise in the confidence they needed to lead during turbulent times. It took off. I then started this newsletter to equip leaders in the same fashion each week for the doubt that crashes across the bow of their leaderSHIP.