Delegating Effectively as a Leader
One of the most important steps in the journey of a business is making first hires. Perhaps more than any other indicator, hiring employee #1 is the sign that business is now taking off. However, hiring can be nerve wracking as an entrepreneur or executive - what if this person doesn’t do the right thing, as well as I can do it? It is a common fear, but as leaders we must learn to delegate or we will never realize our full potential and we will stunt our business’s growth.
Learning to delegate starts with a shift in mindset. While the initial role of a founder/CEO involves taking care of pretty much everything at the company, as the business scales, those responsibilities shift. The CEO needs to become the highest level strategic thinker at the company. They should have a steady stream of data coming in from throughout the business, bubbled up from the frontlines through the system of managers, and used to inform their decision making. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos once said “[If I make] three good decisions a day, that’s enough, and they should just be as high quality as I can make them.” As Jeff reveals, the role of the CEO must shift from being constantly in-the-weeds, to making space to focus on the company’s direction. To learn to delegate successfully, the Executive’s mindset must shift from “what must I do” to “who do I need”.
Successful delegation also involves hiring the right people. To hire the right people, consider the practical (what kinds of experience will this person need to be successful with the tasks I want help with?) and the personal (what type of person do I most want to work with?). When assessing personal characteristics of a good hire, take a step back and think about your core values. Do you value creativity, freedom, and big picture thinking? Perhaps you hire someone who also values freedom, but is more process and detail oriented, depending on the types of tasks you are going to be delegating. The key consideration is that your hire is a match with you on core values that are fundamental to what your business is all about, and also has values that complement yours, so together you are strong in more areas than either of you are alone. As you build out this team, you begin to create a system where your business can run without you day-to-day. The impact of this is more time to focus on what you want to, more time to direct and grow the company’s culture, and more time to make an impact on the people you serve.
With strong alignment on values, the next thing to establish with your team is ownership and accountability. At Apple, each project is assigned a “Directly Responsible Individual” or DRI. No matter how many others are involved in a project, ultimately, this person takes responsibility. This practice has been extremely successful for Apple and other organizations who have implemented it because it increases accountability and naturally establishes someone as leader. Of course, there are cases where a project goes wrong and the DRI is sometimes fired, but more often than not, establishing a DRI helps move things along more smoothly and successfully. The DRI feels a sense of ownership and accountability, and others on the team recognize that this person needs their help to find success with this project. If your team is smaller, and there are more ongoing responsibilities than there are projects, you can establish a DRI when it seems useful. For example, setting a DRI for all your social media accounts lets your team know that when they have something related to this, it goes to the DRI, not you as the CEO. Establishing a DRI makes them the head of that project/responsibility, reporting directly to you for those functions.
With your new mindset, aligned hires, and accountability structures in place, your team will thrive as it continues to grow. So will you, as you have created space for yourself to focus on your vision, the company’s direction, and the culture of your team. Probably a little more time to recharge as well!
As always, if there is anything we can do to support you as your team grows, please don’t hesitate to reach us.