In Rebecca Elvy's latest i3 Leadership Newsletter, she challenges us "to stop trying to do it all on your own and ask for help..."
The challenge of asking for help is an interesting one.
Let's forget that asking for help to a certain degree is a display of vulnerability - that you are not the superperson that you might desire to project the image of, because such a superperson would be able to do everything herself and still be able to fly around the world at the speed of light, all in a day's work. (The topic of vulnerability and why showing your weak spots might be a good idea has been discussed here earlier). And the vulnerability can easily be explained - there's a reason that you are the leader of a team; you simply have so much to do that you should not be able to do it yourself - or might not have all the relevant skills - hence the team.
Let's also forget that some people avoid delegation because knowledge is power - if a leader does not want to share necessary knowledge, she is not displaying leadership, not to be considered a leader and should never have been appointed in the first place.
And then I am happy that I did not even think about the point that Rebecca also mentions: the thought "that delegating or asking for help will ... not meet your exacting standards..." Because I take pride in empowering and trusting my team, it makes me happy that I did not even think that whoever I might delegate a task to might not be up to do it in a satisfactory way.
But Rebecca is still so absolutely right. From time to time I get into these situations where delegating seems a waste of time - because I would be able to do what I ask for in a fragment of the time, as I have tried it before, and know that simply the task of delegating it to a more inexperienced person would take time, because I would at least need to have a mentoring role in the process.
At these times, it is beneficial to at least consider: is this something that we for sure never need to do again. Because if there is a fragment of possibility that this could be a recurring task, then it must be remembered that next time the task occurs, the additional resources used on mentoring and building up experience will start paying back. And even if it is a one-off task, there is still a possibility to develop the delegate in the process, and it should be considered, if the time is not well spent on it.
At these times, it is beneficial to at least consider: is this something that we for sure never need to do again. Because if there is a fragment of possibility that this could be a recurring task, then it must be remembered that next time the task occurs, the additional resources used on mentoring and building up experience will start paying back. And even if it is a one-off task, there is still a possibility to develop the delegate in the process, and it should be considered, if the time is not well spent on it.
Finally, the delegation is also a process of knowledge sharing - and if the knowledge is shared, the risk that a task cannot be handled the next time I am for some reason not around for it diminishes.
But in the heat of the moment, we tend to act rather than think. And if there's one thing your piece on asking for help has done, it has made me make a mental note: the next time, I am about to start on something that I might as well delegate, stop doing and start delegating. It's not necessarily an easy thing to do, but the above considerations show that it's an important one.
(Translated from Noget om hjælp og uddelegering)