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00:00:00 --> 00:00:05 Welcome to Your Morning Boost, your daily leadership advice to help you lead your school community.
00:00:05 --> 00:00:09 Brought to you by AWB Education and sponsored by Grundmeyer Leader Services,
00:00:10 --> 00:00:14 where together we are transforming education, one leader at a time.
00:00:14 --> 00:00:16 Now here's your host, Adam Bush.
00:00:18 --> 00:00:21 Hello, good morning, welcome back. Today we're going to continue our talk on delegation.
00:00:21 --> 00:00:25 We have been diving into Lauren Landry's 2020 Harvard Business School article
00:00:25 --> 00:00:30 on how to delegate effectively, and looking at this from the lens of school leadership.
00:00:31 --> 00:00:35 We talked about tips one through three yesterday, and now it is time to dive into a couple more.
00:00:36 --> 00:00:40 Lauren's next tip is to provide the right resources and level of authority.
00:00:40 --> 00:00:44 Now, when we ask somebody to take on a task, we need to make sure that they
00:00:44 --> 00:00:46 have the ability to actually complete it.
00:00:46 --> 00:00:51 Do they need additional training, or do they need access to something to be able to do the work?
00:00:51 --> 00:00:55 They may also need permission or authority to make the decisions at the end
00:00:55 --> 00:00:58 of the task. Otherwise, it just will not move forward.
00:00:58 --> 00:01:01 What you do not want to do is delegate something that eventually just comes
00:01:01 --> 00:01:04 back to you anyway because of a false start.
00:01:04 --> 00:01:08 Now, once you've provided all of these areas and give the task away,
00:01:08 --> 00:01:10 the key part is to stay away.
00:01:10 --> 00:01:14 This is where a lot of our colleagues that struggle with micromanaging,
00:01:14 --> 00:01:15 this is where we typically misstep.
00:01:16 --> 00:01:21 If we are delegating appropriately, we need to allow the people we trusted with this task to do the work.
00:01:21 --> 00:01:26 We can follow up and we can check on progress. That's fine. But we cannot control everything.
00:01:26 --> 00:01:30 As students today say, you got to let them cook. Got to let them go do that
00:01:30 --> 00:01:35 task that we've delegated to them and trust that our process is going to take us to the future.
00:01:35 --> 00:01:39 Now, the next tip that we're going to address or that she addresses is kind
00:01:39 --> 00:01:40 of part of what I was just talking about.
00:01:41 --> 00:01:44 Number five is to establish a clear communication channel.
00:01:44 --> 00:01:48 This is where our big micromanagers fail and being too involved,
00:01:48 --> 00:01:52 but also not having a method of communication between you and the person delegated
00:01:52 --> 00:01:55 is also a way to be unsuccessful in this process.
00:01:55 --> 00:01:59 This reminds me of a time many years ago when I was working as an associate
00:01:59 --> 00:02:02 principal and the growth in our district had hit a point where there was a new
00:02:02 --> 00:02:04 position that needed to be added to our team.
00:02:04 --> 00:02:08 Now we had a dean of students and the head principal and myself,
00:02:08 --> 00:02:14 we were so excited to have somebody to help with that workload. So excited.
00:02:14 --> 00:02:18 We, you know, we met together. We decided on what parts of the job made the
00:02:18 --> 00:02:21 most sense for this new position, and we delegated away those responsibilities.
00:02:21 --> 00:02:25 Now I finally have the time to do the work I need to do.
00:02:26 --> 00:02:30 However, we literally dumped this stuff on a new person and didn't think about
00:02:30 --> 00:02:34 the process for onboarding, let alone a process for collaborating on that new
00:02:34 --> 00:02:37 role, the new tasks, and how they were going to do in the new job.
00:02:38 --> 00:02:42 We inadvertently just set them up for failure because we didn't think through
00:02:42 --> 00:02:44 the process of communication and collaboration around the work.
00:02:45 --> 00:02:49 Even though I'm delegating the work in the end, I'm still responsible for it,
00:02:49 --> 00:02:52 even if it's just part of the team. I can't forget that part.
00:02:52 --> 00:02:56 There is a need for feedback and communication from a two-way lens throughout
00:02:56 --> 00:02:59 that process, especially if we are going to be successful.
00:02:59 --> 00:03:04 You have been listening to Your Morning Boost by AWB Education in partnership
00:03:04 --> 00:03:05 with Grundmeyer Leader Services.
00:03:06 --> 00:03:10 You can find out more about our services by clicking on the links in the description.
00:03:11 --> 00:03:15 Remember, you are doing this vital job that only a few can do.
00:03:16 --> 00:03:20 So until next time, thank you for your service to your community.