How to delegate while maintaining high standards
This is for managers who want to delegate AND maintain a high bar for quality of work. Here are the 5 tactics I learned over time that made delegating easier.
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Read time: 9 minutes
Delegating isn’t hard.
Delegating while maintaining the level of quality you want…
without needing to jump in to do everything yourself…
or taking 3x as long because you’re correcting your team’s work after you delegated to supposedly save yourself time…
That is hard.
I’ve come to realize that the problem isn’t that managers don’t know they should delegate.
Every manager knows they should delegate.
So why is it so hard to do it consistently, and do it well?
You (the manager) are still ultimately responsible
The challenge is you (the manager) are ultimately responsible for the quality of decision-making and quality of output that comes out of your team.
You are basically putting your stamp of approval on everything your team ships.
There is a psychological weight to this, that we as managers are compensated for carrying and which comes with the role. But it’s a weight nonetheless.
Personally, I do not want to put my stamp of approval on stuff that I don’t think is that good. I do not want to say “looks good to me” if the thing does not, in fact, look good.
Not everything has to be done at an A+ level, but I refuse to accept I just have to lower my standards overall if someone else is doing the work. (Some amount of this is necessary but IMO most managers use this as an excuse to let standards drop in the name of “well someone else is doing it and they’ll do it differently so I should let it go.”
When I was learning to delegate, I did not need management experts telling me Captain Obvious advice, like “You need to prioritize! Do what’s most highly leveraged!”
Obviously I was trying to prioritize and be involved in stuff that was highly-leveraged and high ROI.
If you are an operator/founder who is actually building and responsible for driving outcomes, you know it’s not always so simple to “let go” or “deprioritize ABC.” Multiple areas of work are important and you don’t have so many levers to drive growth that you can haphazardly treat some as throwaway.
Over time, I realized a few things about delegating that really helped me embrace delegating, and even come to really enjoy it. I share the concepts below, and hope they help you too.
This post is not for managers who simply want to be hands-off
Some managers are very comfortable being quite distant from the day-to-day of what their team’s work actually entails.
That’s never been me. I’m a proud player-coach. Most of the leaders I respect are not so removed from the craft.
Many of my clients are leaders/founders who see value in being plugged into what their team is doing.
Personally, I believe you need some knowledge of the craft and context to be able to be a useful thought partner to your team. If you’re too distant and hands-off, you’re often not able to understand the nuances involved, which makes it harder for you to contribute, problem solve, etc beyond a surface level.
So this post is for you if you are a manager who wants to be plugged in with your team BUT want to stop doing everything yourself.
1. Delegating is not binary
Most people see it as binary: you do it yourself or delegate to others. But delegating is actually a spectrum.
A common challenge I work with clients on is knowing when to solve a problem yourself vs solving with/alongside your direct report vs delegating entirely to a direct report. It is situation-dependent, so we talk about what project/task you're thinking of delegating, who's a good candidate, their task-relevant maturity, and how to build in check-in points so you derisk the chances they come back with something of mediocre quality.
I love delegating and have helped many operators develop their own intuition around when/how to delegate.
When my clients realize delegating isn’t binary, they start seeing in shades of grey. You’ll start to see progress with how you’re improving how you delegate, and how your team is gradually and consistently taking on more of what you used to do.
2. Identify your direct report’s task relevant maturity
Continuing from the point above, the concept of task relevant maturity is super helpful. It reminds me that, again, delegating is not all-or-nothing.
Andy Grove, CEO of Intel, created this term in his classic book High Output Management. Here’s an excerpt:
“How often you monitor should not be based on what you believe your subordinate can do in general, but on his experience with a specific task and his prior performance with it—his task relevant maturity... As the subordinate's work improves over time, you should respond with a corresponding reduction in the intensity of the monitoring.”
Basically, you should be more hands-on if your direct report is newer at the specific type of task you’re asking them to do.
For example, let’s say you manage a program manager. You fully trust them to run existing programs, and they have a track record of improving what you’ve designed.
But if going forward, you want them to create programs from scratch, this is a new skill. They do not have much experience doing this.
Just because the person was great at maintaining existing programs, does not mean they have the skills to invent and design new programs. Realizing that these are different skills is helpful for deciding how to support your direct report.
You may to stay more involved until you see that your direct report knows what to do, you’re trusting and verifying their work, etc. Once they get the hang of it, you can be less involved, or shift from directing mode to coaching mode.
3. Resist the urge to “hide” behind doing stuff you’re already good at
You may be lying to yourself when you say, “I’m the only one who can do this”.
I've observed (and have personally experienced) the urge to “hide” by doing stuff I’m already good at and know how to do. I say other people wouldn’t be able to do X, but that’s partially because I take pride in being good at X.
I believe this is an unspoken thought that many managers have.
This is more of the mindset aspect of delegating. IMO It's extremely important to be ruthless about calling yourself out and being intellectually honest.
There are going to be new things that are ambiguous, uncertain, there’s no right answer, and it's going to feel tempting to delay thinking about those and focusing on what you do know. You will always have too much on your plate, so it's your responsibility to assert what you should be doing.
If you’re reactive, you’ll end up being pulled in every direction, being spread too thin, and feeling resentful. And your manager/leadership won't know why because they’ll have expected you to define what you should be doing.
4. Take the time upfront to explain a project thoughtfully
Many managers toss a request over the wall with zero context and say “do this.”
Even if your direct report is senior, they would likely benefit from a bit of context. Even 5-10 minutes to cover why this project matters, what the goal is, potential areas of risk, etc makes a huge difference.
Consider it an upfront investment. Doing this will help your team save time, minimize miscommunication, execute with confidence, and ship faster.
For more on how to explain yourself well when delegating, check out the CEDAF framework.
5. Avoid owning IC work
Notice I said avoid owning IC work, not avoid doing IC work.
This is perhaps the most important item on the list. I would credit this as the main way I’m able to stay quite involved in my team’s work to be able to coach, teach, and help them improve their judgment, WITHOUT getting overwhelmed being too in the weeds.
In today’s environment and teams becoming more lean due to AI, many managers have to be more hands on, which means embracing IC work. Personally I think this is great because it keeps you sharp at your craft.
The idea is to avoid owning IC work as much as possible—knowing that if you are a player-coach, you will still end up doing 20%+ IC work even if you aim to do 0%.
When I managed more junior and mid-level folks, this worked well because:
(a) it’s much easier to react to an asset in front of you than to create from a cold start, so you use less brainpower
(b) my direct reports loved seeing my “before and after” examples when I gave edits
(c) you can give high-level structural feedback, then ask them to take another stab. This allows you to stay highly-leveraged yet involved in your team's work.
Not owning IC work, but still being hands on when your direct reports prepare stuff to review with you, has been the key for me.
You can also ask your team members to bring you multiple items to review in a batch. That way, your team can come organized, you can hammer through giving feedback on a few things, and you can both make the best use of your time. More on how I give feedback quickly.
Which item on the list are you most excited to try?
Delegating is not binary
Identify your direct report’s task relevant maturity
Resist the urge to “hide” behind doing stuff you’re already good at
Take the time upfront to explain a project thoughtfully
Avoid owning IC work
Hit reply because I’d love to hear from you. Thanks for being here, and I’ll see you in two weeks on Wednesday at 8am ET.
Wes
Further reading
If you liked this, you’ll like these posts on delegating, giving feedback, and developing high standards:
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Like that one.
CEDAF is a huge insight 💡for me and a good point to deep dive.
Great distillation of this perennial area of struggle in management/leadership. I really like the concept of delegation as a spectrum rather than a binary.