Hands off leadership how to#
Hands off leadership full#

It also shapes an organizational culture with a reputation that attracts the best talent in the competitive landscape.ĭelegation only happens by choice, never by chance. Investing in the development of team members not only frees up the leader to address more strategic concerns, but it contributes to the engagement and retention of your best talent. The formula includes four components: microlearning around leadership competencies coaching conversations around learning application on-the-job application to develop new leadership habits, skills, and behaviors, and reflection that leads to more learning and new application. Recent leadership development research indicates the value of stretch assignments as the optimum approach to move emerging leaders from a talent pool into a leadership development pipeline.

Hands off leadership full#

The leader finally says, “Now you do it, and I will be available to support you.” Then, the leader delegates full responsibility and full authority with ongoing review and support.ĭelegation Readiness and Stretch Assignments

Stage Four: High Responsibility/High Authority.

This time, I’ll watch you do it.” Then, the leader provides feedback for discussion from what was observed. The leader says, “Let’s do this together.

Stage Three: Low Responsibility/High Authority.

You help me.” Then they discuss what the team member observed, experienced, and learned.

The leader communicates, “Let’s do this together. Stage Two: High Responsibility/Low Authority.The leader communicates to the team member, “Come watch me do this.” Then they debrief on what the team member observed. Stage One: Low Responsibility/Low Authority.The Cultural Fit Question: Will we like them while they do the delegated assignment?ĭevelopmental delegation is a process that leverages four messages designed to meet team members at each stage of readiness to take on a new responsibility.The Personal Drive Question: Will they successfully complete the delegated assignment?.The Bandwidth Question: Do they have time to do this delegated assignment?.The Competence Question: Can they do this delegated assignment?.Answering the “Who” Questionįirst, there are four delegation selection questions when a leader is considering which team member is ready for a stretch assignment. It also prevents the development of direct reports through the stretch assignments that are handed off.Īnd together it keeps the organization from achieving its productivity potential of delivering services or products efficiently and effectively. When leaders don’t go through all four steps, it diminishes their ability to lead at higher levels of organizational complexity. There is a four-step process of getting a team member ready for full responsibility and full authority. The leader frees up time and resources to give attention to strategic issues of greater organizational complexity. The return on investment? The team member gets a stretch assignment that enhances their leadership capacity. Authority (letting go) is the appropriate power a leader gives to a team member to use time and organizational resources to reach a shared outcome. Responsibility (handing off) is an assignment the leader gives to a team member along with accountability for results. How do leaders address the conundrum?ĭelegation is a handing off process combined with a letting go process. Since time is limited, the invitation to every leader is to offload some tasks so they can address more important responsibilities. It requires the analysis and synthesis of relevant data: the latest information about the industry, the market, the customer, the competition, the vendor, the employee base, and the changes in technology.

It demands time away from operations by climbing to that 30,000-foot perspective to discover what’s ahead. The strategic role of leadership is to see around the corner-to see what others do not yet see. It’s the danger of defaulting to one’s subject matter expertise in operational tactics rather than stepping away from operations to think about strategy. That choice to keep doing what another could do keeps them from letting go of the urgent to address the more important. Their rationale includes not wanting to lose the time it would take to get someone up to speed on the task and often an assumption that they can do it faster and better than anyone else. Their challenge is to continually lead more effectively and efficiently at higher levels of organizational complexity.Īlmost every leader I have met admits that week after week they do some things that someone else on their team could easily do.

Hands off leadership how to#

Business leaders face the daily choice of how to use the most limited resource available to them: time.