BEFORE YOU EMPOWER OTHERS, ASSESS THE CONTEXT

In my last blog, I made a case for empowering your team members, which was well received. In this blog, I encourage you to scrutinize the context within which you might empower them, to ensure they’re actually set up for success.

The idea of empowering your people is a generally noble, largely unquestioned, and somewhat ubiquitous leadership principle. Paradoxically, however, if you adopt the idea of empowerment at all times, with all team members, in all situations, then you will very likely set your people up for failure. Put simply, it’s not always a good idea to delegate a particular task or responsibility; the context is critical.

Think about a task or responsibility that you would like to delegate, then reflect on the six considerations below to see whether your team member would likely be set up for success or failure.

1. How complex is this task? Consider the number of variables, components, stakeholders, assumptions, and unanswered questions. If task complexity is high, that’s not a deal breaker, but you will then need more favorable answers to the considerations below if you want a high probability of success.
2. How significant are the consequences of failure? Imagine it all went wrong, would that cause a minor issue or a major problem that would be hard to recover from? The more significant the consequences of failure, the more pressure your team member will feel, and the more care you must take before delegating.
3. How tight is the timeframe to deliver? Pay attention to the critical path to deliver successfully on the task, the assumptions that have been built into that path, and the number of things that could go wrong. If there’s little wiggle room in your timeline, that’s something to consider before delegating.
4. How great is the level of stakeholder scrutiny? If this task will fly under the radar, then there’s little risk here. If it’s something that will garner a lot of attention, then that’s something to consider very carefully. High stakeholder scrutiny can consume enormous amounts of time and emotional energy for your team member, in ways that can undermine their confidence and ability to deliver.
5. How much of the necessary skill, experience and self-confidence does your team member have? Obviously, if you waited for your team member to develop everything they needed before delegating, then you’d never delegate. In fact, the whole point of delegation is to help your team member grow their skill, experience, and self-confidence so that you can collectively accomplish more. That said, throwing them in the deep end is a high-risk strategy. Ideally, they will have enough capability to deliver, but plenty of room to grow along the way.
6. How much time and energy can you invest in supporting them? ‘Real-time’ coaching and support are among the most critical variables in the success of any act of delegation. Think carefully about the time you’re prepared to invest in your team member as they take on this task, and the frequency of your interactions. Manager support has a disproportionate impact on team member confidence, clarity, and contribution.

Consider these six questions every time you are planning to empower a team member. Do they have a game they can win or, with the best of intentions, are you setting them up to fail? Of course, the choice is not typically a simple yes or no answer. More often than not, you will have some of the necessary ingredients and not others. At least this way, you can decide to move forward, or not, with eyes wide open.

Inspiration from others

“I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” – Ralph Nader

“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” – Booker T. Washington

Questions to reflect on

• On reflection, are you typically setting your people up for success or failure?
• Which of the six questions do you need to consider more deeply before delegating?
• What is one action that you are committed to?

If you would like to empower your people more effectively, you can take a complimentary 30-day trial of my leadership app, Enixa, at www.enixa.co. If you would like to use Enixa to create more leaders in your team or organisation, contact [email protected].

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