Delegation Principles for Leaders

Insightful delegation has been around for a while. Just what do leaders do to come across effectively as they delegate? Judgment is involved, and as such will rest on the leader’s knowledge, experience, acquired
competences and personal style. Leaders perform at least three cardinal checks
before delegating. Delegation is not an exact science, but a human endeavor of
subjective character laced with objective criteria. If maturity were a lens to
look through, three layers of judgment are involved in delegation.

1. Task Maturity: This judgment is apparently a mundane one. Does the direct report or the one being delegated to possess the requisite knowledge to perform the task at hand? Seemingly the
   province of a manager, the leader’s judgment comes in when he or she
   distinguishes raw enthusiasm from genuine task competence. Often hands go
   up to hog the task space, and the desire to be in the limelight is often
   mistaken for willingness to take on a complete set of responsibilities. To
   entrust significant tasks without performing a check on task maturity is
   to naively risk one’s own reputation at the hands of the incompetent
   direct report. A leader’s wisdom is enhanced when he or she realizes the
   connection between one’s own identity and value-based self-image and the
   outcome of a responsibility.
2. Emotional Maturity: There exist extreme values of emotions that a leader’s repertoire of expressions will journey before emotional maturity manifests itself. A wise leader will perceive these
   shades in one’s direct reports. On the one end, there’s the unabashed
   loudspeaker as if shouting from the rooftops for all and sundry to hear.
   Just as an empty vessel that makes more noise, so does the immature direct
   report. Shouting from the throes of a small chunk of task completion is an
   elation waiting to be tempered with experiences that humble. On the other
   end, there’s that solo player working on the brink of a Nobel Prize, and
   is blissfully unaware of the potential impact of one’s contributions. If
   the leader fails to recognize the worth of this exceptional performer in
   need of social adjustment, a coaching opportunity is missed in exposing
   the jewel on one’s team to the glory that awaits the busy soul. How else
   would the world know what potential lies beneath one’s team? Neither end
   of emotional expression described here deserves a leader’s delegation
   muster. Emotional maturity is marked by a fine sense of social adjustment
   that balances a range of emotions and yet succumbs to no extreme.
3. Moral Maturity: We live in a world where the ‘copy and paste’ feature of software in the information age is a template of convenience for many. Imagine a leader’s plight in dealing with a case of plagiarism. There
   are many in our resource hungry world, numbed, if not ensnared by
   consumerist pangs, who are more than willing to steal credit of other
   people’s efforts. When delegating, a judgment on moral maturity is perhaps
   a defining one.