How to Delegate Effectively and Reclaim Your Time as a Leader

As a leader, you may sometimes struggle with delegating tasks to your team. You might feel that you’re burdening them, or perhaps you think only you can get the job done right. As a result, you carry the weight of the work, leading to stress and pressure. You spend your time doing the work of the people you employed to do it, while also juggling the many additional responsibilities leaders and business owners face.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Many leaders want to work smarter, not harder, and remove the feeling of carrying the world on their shoulders. The truth is, you can’t—and shouldn’t—do it all yourself.

However, what many leaders don’t realize is that their natural preferences might be getting in the way of effective delegation, making it harder to reclaim their time.

 

The First Step: Assessing Your Team’s Skill and Will

The key to effective delegation is understanding the high skill and high will of your team members. In other words, are they both capable (high skill) and motivated (high will) to take on more responsibility?

When a team member shows high skill and high will, it signals that they are ready, able, and motivated to take on more responsibility. These are the employees who can help lighten your workload, giving you more time to focus on leadership and strategy, rather than being bogged down by day-to-day tasks.

But why does this assessment matter so much? Misjudging an employee’s skill or willingness to take on more responsibility often results in frustration—for both the leader and the employee. When you assign tasks to someone with low skill or low will, it can lead to mistakes, delays, and more work landing back on your desk.

 

Why Your Leadership Style Matters

We always start our leadership development training with a tool to help you understand yourself by identifying your preferences  Your personality preference plays a key role in how you delegate and interact with your team.

Here’s how each preference could impact your ability to delegate:

  • Being overly supportive of people

Some leaders struggle to delegate as they want to avoid “putting on” their team members by asking them to take on more work, even when they are capable and willing. This reluctance to delegate can mean the leader doing the tasks that could have been easily handled by others.

  • Being overly involved with your team

Some leaders are too involved and might find it hard to hand over tasks, even if the team is ready. Some leaders may feel that by not delegating, they’re staying connected to the team or maintaining control.

  • Being overly directive

For some leaders it is all about getting “things done”.  You might expect tasks to be done with minimal guidance or training. This can backfire, as employees may feel unsure about how to proceed, constantly seeking clarification, which takes up even more of your time.

  • Being overly cautious

Some leaders are highly focused on accuracy and may become so absorbed in getting things right that they fail to delegate effectively. Some leaders focus on so much on the details that this can prevent them from trusting their team with tasks, leading to micromanagement.

 

The Solution: Adapt Your Leadership Style to Delegate Effectively

Understanding your own preferences helps you recognise how you might be inadvertently hindering both your team’s growth and your own ability to reclaim time.

Once you understand your own tendencies, you can start to adjust your leadership style to delegate more effectively.

But delegation only works when you match the right task to the right team member. If a team member shows low skill or low will, it’s important to invest time in developing them. This involves Directing, Coaching, and Mentoring them until they’re ready to take on more responsibility. Once they reach high skill and high will, you’ll be able to Delegate with confidence.

 

Effective Delegation Requires the Right Leadership Style

By adopting the right leadership style for each team member’s development stage, you’ll create more opportunities to delegate work confidently. This, in turn, frees up your time to focus on what really matters—leading your team, driving strategy, and achieving long-term goals.

 

Ready to Learn More?

 If you’d like to discover your preference, learn how to adapt your leadership style to match your team’s capabilities or get more tips on delegation so you can reclaim your time, we’re here to help. Book a free chat by contacting: [email protected]

Take the first step to working smarter, delegating effectively, and leading your team with confidence.

Remember: The key to delegation isn’t just assigning tasks; it’s ensuring your team is both capable and motivated to take on those responsibilities. With the right approach, you’ll find that you can trust your team more, reduce your workload, and focus on the bigger picture.