Why Effective Leaders Often Don't Delegate

It is often said that an effective leader must be able to delegate both responsibilities and duties. In practice, however there are a number of obstacles to this actually working. Before one is capable of delegating confidently, a leader must have an individual or individuals in place that are both willing and able to do the task or tasks delegated. Since there are so few effective leaders, it is even more delegate for a "leader" who is himself not "up to the task" to have the ability to identify who and what can and should be delegated. The next obstacle to effective delegation is that if one is fortunate enough and skilled enough to have those rare leadership qualities, it may often not be feasible to identify an "up-and-comer," or a past-leader, that one can confidently delegate responsibility to.

Quite often, less effective "leaders" delegate responsibilities, duties and tasks, not for the intended management effectiveness reasons of improving overall effectiveness, but rather to avoid doing certain things themselves. A major flaw in the "delegation" concept is the belief that delegating means it's one less thing you have to do yourself. Unfortunately, I have observed an ever- increasing tendency by ineffective leaders to often delegate responsibilities in order to "pass the buck" and absolve themselves of personal responsibility. However, as President Harry Truman said, "The buck stops here," and effective leaders understand that true leaders always have the final responsibility and oversight.

It is important to understand and recognize that delegating does not mean that you "do nothing yourself!" When one is able to locate someone to delegate responsibility or duties to, an effective leader must have a "system" in place, to receive updates and reports on a current basis, and a checklist to assure "smooth sailing." However, like most things managerial, simply having a system in place is meaningless, unless the "leader" insists upon adequate follow-ups and safeguards, and regular on-going reporting!

All too often, what occurs is that an ineffective leader delegates duties to a "not ready for prime time" assistant. Unfortunately, the inevitable result or results are usually disappointing at best, and sometimes disastrous. This venturing into delegation took up valuable time, both for the leader and the individual assigned the tasks, and the results were far less stellar, considerably more time-consuming, and often more expensive than if an effective leader simply did the delegated task himself. What individuals who are not as effective often don't realize, is that someone who is effective and knows how to manage time effectively, can accomplish much more in far less time than those less effective.

In analyzing organizational operations over decades, I have observed that one of the greatest frustrations for that rare effective leader, is having to deal with others far less effective. While the leader realizes that in concept delegating is a terrific idea, he often does not have the time to "put up with" the ineffectiveness and time wasting of others. When an effective leader knows that it often will take two, three , or even a greater multiple of extra time when someone else does a task than when he does, and that leader realizes that he wants to accomplish something during his finite term (tenure) in office, the effective leader decides to simply do it himself, and get it done the right way from the start.

I have rarely seen an effective leader discuss the need to delegate duties. That subject is usually dwelled on by others who don't accomplish nearly as much, are poor time managers, and are more interested in absolving themselves of responsibility than accomplishing the goal. An effective leader understands that the top priority in an organization is getting the task done and accomplishing the goal, thus fulfilling his vision!