How to Delegate: It Is a Trust Problem, Not a Task Problem

To delegate well, hand over three things at once: what needs to be done, how you want it done, and when you need it. Then give the person the resources and the authority to do it, and check the agreed points instead of the work. Delegation breaks down over trust far more often than over capability.

You cannot do it all. No matter how much you believe you are the only one who can get it right, you cannot do it all. You have to outsource, delegate, hand off, whatever you want to call it.

I work with business leaders constantly who are frustrated that their team is missing the point. Instead of taking the time to get the team on point, they do it themselves. I saw the same thing in the Green Berets, and I did it myself more than once.

What follows is the handoff most leaders skip, and the trust problem sitting underneath it.

Why do leaders refuse to delegate?

Because they have decided they are the only one who truly understands what needs to happen, and quite often they are right, which is exactly the problem.

One of my first bosses in my first staff job gave me a task on a Monday. I had several other things on my plate and he did not say this one was a priority, so I kept working my existing tasks. A couple of days later I went back to him for clarification before starting it. He told me he had finished it himself the day before.

So why did you bother me with it?

Several months later that same boss collapsed on duty during an exercise. He had been awake for more than eighty hours. Pretty badass and stupid all at once. He did it because he believed he was the only one who could get the job done, the only one who truly understood what needed to happen.

He was right about that. He was right because he was terrible at communicating what was important and how he wanted it done. He created the condition he was complaining about.

That is the trap. Every time you take the task back, you prove to yourself that you are the only one who can do it, and you remove the one thing that would have made it untrue.

What do you actually have to hand over?

Three things, every time: what needs to be done, how you want it done, and when you need it done.

If you expect your team to execute a task in a certain way in a certain time, you have to take the time to make sure they understand all three. If you assume they get it, you are more in the wrong than they are.

When something comes back wrong, run these questions before you run a performance conversation:

1. Are they clear on what their role is?
2. Do they know what they need to do to be successful?
3. Have I given them the resources and the authorities they need to succeed?
4. Have I trained them how I want them to perform?

If the answer to all four is yes, there is one question left: did I put them in a position beyond their ability to succeed?

In the end you are the one in charge. It is your responsibility to help your team succeed, and it is your responsibility when they fail. That sentence is uncomfortable and it is the whole job.

Why is delegation a trust problem?

Because handing over work means accepting an outcome you did not personally control, and that is trust by definition.

There is one thing in human existence that is the foundation for every relationship, and I mean every one. Trust. Every leader has the trust of his team. Every friendship runs on it. Every business interaction requires it. It is the most intangible and most fragile thing we all rely on.

I have made many business deals with a handshake, and many more where the handshake was followed by a document explaining the agreement. The paper does nothing to solidify the trust, the same way a marriage license does nothing but put the agreement on record.

Trust can also be gone in the blink of an eye. I have watched a single violation destroy marriages, businesses and friendships. Greed, self-indulgence, self-importance, plenty of others, and someone decides in a moment to break it. When trust is violated it does more than damage that one relationship. It changes how you see all of them.

So when a leader refuses to delegate, look at the belief underneath. Usually it is not "they cannot do it." It is "I will be the one holding the bag." Both are trust statements.

Why does trust decay when you are not in the room?

Because humans tie trust to physical presence, and distance is a slow leak.

Think about the number of people you trust without ever meeting them. Every time you get in the truck and pull onto the road, you trust a complete stranger. That F250 coming at you at forty miles an hour means that if he decides to drift into your lane, you hit him at eighty. Physics. You will never see that truck again, let alone build a relationship with the driver.

I finished an executive session with a client not long ago, a full day with the top leaders of a company in one room working on being a better team. The number one thing that came up in every discussion was not revenue and it was not client satisfaction. It was trust. The trust they had built in that room. The trust they needed with their people, and the trust their clients needed in the company's ability to deliver.

There was never a lack of trust among the people in the room. What is interesting is how we lose trust when we are not in the room. Trust has a half-life, and every day without connection it subsides. A voice on a phone or a flat image on a screen never replaces the bond humans build by being physically present.

If you lead a team and you are not meeting physically with them on a regular basis, the trust is dwindling right now, and delegation gets harder every month it does. A handwritten note, an email, a phone call or a video call bridges the gap until you are in the same room again.

One more on presence. Break bread together. Coffee, lunch, even a working lunch in the office touches something primal about connection and sharing food. I must trust you if I am willing to share my meal with you.

How does saying "I don't know" make delegation possible?

One of the finest traits of a great leader is being able to say three words: I don't know.

A true leader is never the smartest person in the room. He may have insight and data that others do not, but he cannot be the smartest one there. A leader's smartness comes from the team he surrounds himself with, and from the honesty to admit he does not know everything.

When you can stand in front of the people who look to you for answers and say "I don't know," you are a leader. That self-confidence shows your team you are human, still learning, still building. It endears you to them. Everyone says they want the all-knowing, never-wrong leader. There is no such thing.

One condition. "I don't know" is not a complete sentence. It has to be followed by something:

• I will find out.
• I will get back to you.
• That is a really good question.
• I do not know the answer right now. When I do, I will get back to you.

Then you actually come back. A leader who says "I don't know" and never returns has not built trust, he has built doubt.

This matters for delegation because a leader who cannot admit a gap cannot hand anything to the person who fills it. If you have to be the most capable person in every conversation, you will keep every task.

How do you make the handoff stick?

Delegation fails at implementation far more often than at instruction. Somebody hears the concept, agrees with it, then goes back to the same situation and nothing changes.

I learned this at the Infantry Officer Advanced Course at Fort Benning, by far the best school I attended in my whole career. I did not learn it by sitting in class and taking notes and studying for the exam. I learned it by taking the theories and applying them in practical exercises, and the most valuable part was doing it alongside my peers. They had different backgrounds and different experience, so when we took a concept into a war game, we learned from each other. Somebody always brought an approach that broke our plan.

That is why our leadership program runs implementation calls throughout the training. I know from every book I have read and every event I have attended that I am terrible at implementing on my own. I come back motivated, step into the same situation I left, and maybe, if I am lucky, a couple of things stick.

Put the same structure on your handoffs. Do not brief the task and walk away. Set a working session where the person walks the actual problem through with you, so the instruction becomes a lesson learned instead of a nice idea.

How to delegate a task, step by step

1. Pick the outcome, not the activity. Describe what "done" looks like in one sentence, in language the person can repeat back.
2. Give all three: what, how and when. Skipping "how" is what produces work that is technically finished and completely wrong.
3. Hand over the authority with the task. Responsibility without authority is a setup, and people know it.
4. Say out loud what you do not know. If there is a part you have never figured out, name it. That is permission for them to solve it rather than guess at your hidden answer.
5. Agree the check-in points before the work starts. Check those points, not the work. If you are reading every draft, read Camden on how to stop micromanaging.
6. Run one implementation session. Walk a real problem through with them once, while you are still available.
7. Let it come back imperfect the first time. If the failure will not sink the company, it is tuition, and it is cheaper than keeping the task forever.

Camden covers the mechanics of the handoff itself in how to delegate effectively. This page is the trust side of the same problem.

Why bother, when doing it yourself is faster today

Because the reason to hand work over is not your calendar.

Sharing what I know has always been a passion of mine. If you have talked with me or listened to the 10x Your Team podcast, you know I have very few off-limits areas. I am energized by seeing someone succeed because I may have helped. That is the legacy I am building. Every time I talk with a fellow from The Commit Foundation or the Honor Foundation, I get fired up by sharing what I know, the mistakes I made and the things I got right.

It is the same reason the Steel Men Tribe lights me up, where every man in the tribe is sharing his lessons with the others. My purpose is to create a legacy of great leaders who are changing the world, and you do not build leaders by keeping the interesting work.

Delegation is the mechanism. Every task you hand over with the full handoff is one more person who can do the thing without you.

Start with one task this week

Take the task you complain about most and the one you are most certain nobody else can do. Those are usually the same task.

Write the outcome in one sentence. Give the what, the how and the when. Hand over the authority. Set two check-in points and then leave it alone between them.

If you want a read on where trust is thin on your team before you start handing things over, the 7 C's of Leadership assessment takes about ten minutes. Building this into the leaders under you is what the Green Beret Leadership Program is for.

Frequently asked questions