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There’s a LOT of pressure on businesses right now to get more done with less. It leaves us with this constant feeling of opportunity… or maybe it’s dread?… or maybe it’s an unhealthy mix of both?! Honestly, some days it’s enough to make me yearn for the simplicity of a rotary phone! ☎️
Use AI. Automate more. Streamline the process. Find efficiency. Help people move faster. All good things-- using technology to eliminate work that doesn’t need to exist or making the right work easier.
But there’s a trap I see growing companies fall into: We strive to make our leaders more productive without ever teaching them how to let go.
So now they can write the email faster. Analyze the information faster. Get through their task list faster. But they’re also still the person everyone comes to with questions. They’re still jumping in when something goes sideways, reviewing work their team could own, carrying decisions that should have moved down a level months ago.
They’ve become incredibly efficient at doing too much. And there’s a ceiling to that efficiency—one that can become a real threat to the key infrastructure people we’ve put in place to help keep us out of the business. 👀 (it’s like a delegation double jeopardy!)
LEADERSHIP REFRAME
For an individual contributor, productivity matters a lot. For a key leader on your team, it’s no longer enough. At some point, meaningful leadership has to shift from:
How much can I get done?
to:
How effectively can I get work done through others?
That shift sounds simple. It isn't. Many of the people we promote into leadership are the ones who got really good at the “doing.” They’re responsive. They solve problems. They know the clients. They have high standards. They can jump in and get something across the finish line.
Those strengths are exactly why we trust them with more responsibility. But nobody necessarily teaches them what comes next as a leader:
- How to hand something off without hovering
- How to give enough context without dictating every step
- How to allow someone else to approach the work differently
- How to resist stepping back in the moment something feels slower or messier than doing it themselves
- How to build confidence in another person instead of continually proving their own competence
Delegation is a leadership skill. And like any other leadership skill, it has to be learned and practiced.
NOTICE THIS WEEK
Take a look at the leaders who report to you. Who is constantly busy? Who tends to become the answer person? Who gets pulled into problems their team should increasingly be able to solve? Who routinely says some version of, “It’s just easier if I do it”?
And especially: Who is really good at their job — but hasn’t yet learned how to stop being the person who does so much of the work?
That may be one of the most valuable development investments you can make in them this fall. Because the goal isn't simply to make your leaders faster. It’s to help them become leaders who know how to let go.
TRY THIS
👉 Send them to my Free Live Training on Monday
If someone on your team came to mind while you were reading this, send them to my free live training on Monday, September 14 at 11:00 AM ET.
I’ll teach the delegation frameworks we use to help leaders understand why they hold on, where delegation breaks down, and how to start transferring work and ownership more effectively.
Who on your team should see this? ⤵️
Helping you lead with less,
Emily