The Leadership Skill Many Avoid (But Can’t Afford To): Delegation

As a manager delegation isn’t just about getting work off your desk. It’s about growing capability within your team, building mutual trust, and for you creating space to lead. Yet many managers and leaders hold back delegating as they simply find it difficult to let go in the moment. Read on to explore the art of delegaton, potential blockers  and how to overcome them to successfully delegate. 

Let’s begin by focussing on what stops managers delegating:

• I can do it better myself  
• They might mess it up  

• It’s quicker if I just do it  

• I’m uncomfortable letting go  

• They’re already busy  

• I don’t like telling people what to do  

• I tried it before, it didn’t work  

• What if they do it better than me? 

If you’re honest, some of these phrases may already sound familiar to you. Moving on, at the heart of it, delegation isn’t really a time issue but more of a control and confidence issue. With a conscious understanding of your personal blockers, you can put into practice ways to confidently delegate. 

Why delegation matters 

Think about times in your career you’ve not been delegated to and when you have. Consider how it made you feel and the consequences. When managers don’t delegate, two things tend to happen. You become the bottleneck, and your team stops growing. Whereas delegation shifts you from doing the work to leading the work. 

What’s in it for you? 

When you start to delegate well, you feel the difference quickly. Your time frees up, your workload becomes more manageable, and you create space to think more strategically rather than just reacting. You’re no longer the bottleneck. Instead, you’re building a stronger, more capable team around you, one that brings fresh thinking and new ideas. Over time, you’re not just getting work done, you’re developing future leaders. 

What’s in it for them? 

For the person you delegate to, it’s an opportunity, not just a task. They build new skills, grow in confidence, and start to take real ownership of their work. With that comes greater motivation and engagement, along with visibility and recognition for what they contribute. Done well, delegation also creates a more balanced workload, helping them manage their role more effectively. 

The key point is that delegation, done well, is development in action. 

A simple delegation strategy 

Think of delegation as a spectrum rather than a single action. At one end, you retain full control and simply allocate the task. As you move along, you give clearer instructions and check more closely. Then you begin to brief and guide, allowing more input while still reviewing progress. Further along the spectrum, you provide direction but give real autonomy, checking in at agreed points. At the far end, you fully empower the individual to take ownership of the task and their performance. 

The aim isn’t to jump straight to full delegation every time. It’s to move people along that spectrum as their confidence and capability grow. 

To help you practice delegation read through and apply our 8 guiding principles. 

8 guiding principles of effective delegation 

1. Be clear about the task and what success looks like  
2. Check understanding rather than assuming it  
3. Match the task to their skills and give the right resources  
4. Agree how and when you’ll check in  
5. Be available to support, without taking over  
6. Use delegation to stretch and develop, not just offload work  
7. Show trust and back them, especially in front of others  
8. Remember, you still hold accountability for the outcome  

 By following these 8 principles and putting them into practice you will experience a fundamental shift from “It’s quicker if I do it” to “It’s better if they learn to do it.”