Coaching Churches

One of the best ways to leverage your leadership influence is to delegate as much work as possible to competent team members.  At the start of every day you should ask yourself is there anything that needs to be done that I can give to someone else with the appropriate investment of my time?

In the Industrial age model of leadership the leaders made all of the decisions about priorities and strategies and the team was responsible only for execution.  This resulted in very little delegation and significantly reduced productivity.

In this type of environment the leader would walk into the meeting and tell the group this is the new program for the fall and hear are your individual assignments, are there any questions?

In the Information age of leadership the leaders still make the decisions about priorities but delegate the development of the strategies and execution to the team.  This is a major improvement and gets everyone into the game.

This meeting would involve the leader saying to the team, this is a program that we are considering for the fall, what do you think?

In the new Idea age the leader is willing to delegate the setting of priorities, strategies and execution with reserving the right to make the final decision on all recommendations from team.  A meeting would include the leader saying to the team what are your recommendations for programs for the fall and why?

The need for and the type of delegation is changing dramatically in the last twenty years.  In the past the leader was suppose to know all the answers to all the questions.  Today they need to know how to ask the right questions and the team is responsible for the answers.

Empowerment is a hot topic for most organizations and their workforce.  It increases trust across the board and significantly improves the capacity of the teams to do more work effectively.  However, if it becomes another branding trick to simply get more work done without investing in your people it can backfire.  This HBR post is well worth the read:

“Research has regularly demonstrated that when employees feel empowered at work, it is associated with stronger job performance, job satisfaction, and commitment to the organization.

Many leaders today often try to empower their employees by delegating authority and decision-making, sharing information, and asking for their input. But our recent research found that this style of leadership works best in motivating certain types of performance and certain types of employees. “Empowering” leaders should know when they can be most effective.”

Read More …

One of the most misunderstood aspects of delegation is the false sense that when I delegate, I just gave up some authority when in reality you just gained capacity.  You can as a leader delegate responsibilities without authority by asking the person or team to develop and recommend.  When trust is built, you then can pass on the appropriate authority as well.  This Coaches Council post is excellent:

As Harvard Business Review puts it, “One of the most difficult transitions for leaders to make is the shift from doing to leading.” There’s a psychological shift to focus your attention on areas that are vital to the company and become less involved in the daily tasks. That shift can bring about fear.

Read More …

One universal truth about leadership is that most of us fail to delegate all of the work that someone else could do just as well or even better.  It is one of the primary ways to develop other leaders.  However, when we do it poorly then our expectations are not met and the other person feels like they failed.  This Michael Hyatt post is helpful:

“Tell me you’ve had this experience. You assign a task but then forget about it. I sure have. As a leader, I am not a micromanager. That’s good news for my team. But I have to be intentional that delegation doesn’t drift into abdication.  It’s not always disastrous when this happens. If we’ve hired well, our teams bridge the gap and nobody is worse off. But sometimes when assignments fall through the cracks, we create serious problems for ourselves.”

Read More …

One of the best ways to leverage your leadership influence is to delegate as much work as possible to competent team members.  At the start of every day you should ask yourself is there anything that needs to be done that I can give to someone else with the appropriate investment of my time?

In the Industrial age model of leadership the leaders made all of the decisions about priorities and strategies and the team was responsible only for execution.  This resulted in very little delegation and significantly reduced productivity.

In this type of environment the leader would walk into the meeting and tell the group this is the new program for the fall and hear are your individual assignments, are there any questions?

In the Information age of leadership the leaders still make the decisions about priorities but delegate the development of the strategies and execution to the team.  This is a major improvement and gets everyone into the game.

This meeting would involve the leader saying to the team, this is a program that we are considering for the fall, what do you think?

In the new Idea age the leader is willing to delegate the setting of priorities, strategies and execution with reserving the right to make the final decision on all recommendations from team.  A meeting would include the leader saying to the team what are your recommendations for programs for the fall and why?

The need for and the type of delegation is changing dramatically in the last twenty years.  In the past the leader was suppose to know all the answers to all the questions.  Today they need to know how to ask the right questions and the team is responsible for the answers.

The tension today in leadership cultures between direction, collaboration and delegation have never been more confusing.  Only using directive behavior will clearly not work but in some situations it’s the only style that will.  Collaboration is wonderful but not at the expense of too many meetings and no execution.  Delegation surely is important but why is it so scary?  This HBR post is excellent:

“Every organization today wants to achieve both alignment and autonomy. Can what works for birds and fish also work for people? The answer comes from a surprising place: the battlefield.  Over centuries, the military has developed an approach to managing “the fog of war.” Generals need to ensure alignment to the strategy, while soldiers need autonomy to respond to changing conditions. The military’s solution has two parts:

Read More …