Business > Further than Figures
Avoiding Reverse Delegation
Empowering staff to solve their own problems is positive for all involved.
TIRÉ DU NUMÉRO : MAY-JUN 2007 ISSUE | PAR MERGE GUPTA-SUNDERJI
Wally Xing, supervisor of a small team of programmers and accountants, had been trying, unsuccessfully, to find the time to redesign one of the reports the company used to track CPU usage. He finally delegated the task to Asha, one of his more experienced programmers. But a few days later, as Wally was on his way to a staff meeting, Asha stopped him in the hallway and began to list the litany of problems she was encountering. Already late for his staff meeting, Wally tried to extricate himself from the conversation, but to no avail. Eventually he interrupted Asha and said: “Just leave it with me, I’ll take a look at it.”
Wally fell into the classic leadership trap called “reverse delegation.” He originally delegated the task to Asha, but when she started asking questions he couldn’t deal with at the time, Wally made a critical leadership mistake. He decided the most expedient solution was to simply take the task back and do it himself. And inadvertently, he gave an inappropriate message to Asha: that if she finds something too difficult to do (or even worse, doesn’t want to do it), he’ll just take the task off her hands and won’t hold her accountable to her original commitment. Not a good recipe for effective leadership or for staff growth and satisfaction.
Three Steps to Employee Empowerment
You’ve probably found yourself in a similar situation, and perhaps you’ve even taken the same approach as Wally. Reverse delegation, unfortunately, is a trap many managers and supervisors easily fall into, but with a little practice, not only can you avoid it, you can even turn it into a learning tool for your employees. Let’s walk through what Wally should have done.
First, he should have asked Asha to meet him in his office to discuss the problem at a different time. At the meeting, he should have used the following three-step process:
- Asked Asha to give a brief description of the problem, either verbally or in writing. By asking her to crystallize the problem, he would have forced Asha to logically think through the issue, instead of just reacting to the crisis.
- Asked Asha to generate some alternatives, either on her own or with his help, and list the benefits and disadvantages of each. In reality, Wally’s role is not to generate the alternatives at all, but to help guide Asha through the process of uncovering them herself. After all, Asha is a senior programmer, and Wally knows she’s capable of generating possible solutions. He just needed to create an environment in which Asha could showcase her talents.
- Once there were at least two alternatives on the table, asked Asha to recommend the best solution, and probe to find out the reason behind her decision. Again, Wally knows Asha is capable of coming to the right conclusion on her own. As a good leader, he recognizes that his real success comes from his ability to help his staff accomplish their work objectives, and not in doing their work himself.
There are dual benefits to this three-step process. On the one hand, it prevents reverse delegation and keeps your workload from escalating. But perhaps more importantly, it helps build up your employees’ skills and self-esteem. When you insist that your employees take full responsibility for the tasks you have assigned them, you create accountability and help them develop their own skills and knowledge. This is one of those moments in leadership that is fondly referred to as a “double bonus.” Remember though, the toughest part of this three-step method is not actually the process itself; it’s having the presence of mind to follow through with it without stumbling into the reverse delegation trap. The good news is, the more you practise it, the easier it will get.
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Merge Gupta-Sunderji , MBA, CGA, turns managers into leaders. This speaker/author gives people practical tools to achieve leadership and communication success. Contact her at www.mergespeaks.com or 403 605 4756.