Delegation

In the last article about excellence, we discussed becoming a person of excellence. The beauty and challenge of excellence is that the more you improve yourself, the more you are set apart from the crowd. After months and years of continuous improvement, the difference becomes clear. Your high standard makes mediocrity irritable to you. You easily notice shoddy work and you are labelled a perfectionist. Your subordinates become uncomfortable working with you because they are incapable of satisfying you.  You are afraid to delegate as you will most likely redo the work. You end up doing most things and barely have time for yourself and things that are really important to you.

Moses the man of God was once there. He received a mandate from God to lead his people the Israelites and he gave himself completely to the work. Exo 18:13 says “the next day Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood around Moses from morning till evening”. This became his constant practice and his major work.  Jethro, his father-in-law noticed this and told him what will be the outcome of his actions; total burn out for both him and the people Exo 18:18. While in the beginning, it will seem a great idea having your personal touch on everything your business or ministry does, in the end you will realize that you cannot do it alone and you were less effective than you could have been if you had delegated.

Delegation is committing part of what you do to others so you can face the most important tasks and in the process, develop others to handle different aspects of the work. Delegation is both good for you and the members of your team. It gives you more time to focus on the larger picture and develop capacity in others. Paul told Timothy that “the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” 2 Tim 2:2.

A key component in the process of delegation is the choice of men and task to assign. The fact that we are different and our capacities and interests are different must be clear to you. As in the Jethro model, there should be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties and rulers of tens. And they should be persons of the same passion and convictions as yourself Exo 18:21. Putting a ruler of thousands to manage fifty is underutilizing the fellow and placing a ruler of tens to rule thousands is to cause a major catastrophe. Hence, the choice of persons and tasks must be God-inspired Exo 18:23.

Most times, delegation fails because the leader completely hands off delegated tasks without giving oversight. Delegation is not abdication. While you do not need to babysit and micromanage your subordinates, it is important that you monitor their work especially at the initial stage and always create an open-door environment such that they are comfortable to come and ask for directions and clarity when they need to.

Will there be a drop in standards? If done properly, there should be no reduction in excellence only dynamism in result. There will be missteps and inadequacies along the way; the knowledge and expertise it took you years to acquire will not be perfected by your subordinates in months, so give them time to grow. But if the process is designed properly, you will have noticed the failures and addressed them before the final product is released. Your duty is to establish milestones and benchmarks along the way by which to measure the outcome. Of course, their styles and approach will be different from yours, encourage it; it can only make the organization better. You really don’t want duplicates of yourself working with you.

Finally, the greatest fear of leaders that fail to delegate is whether they will still be relevant after empowering the subordinates? The truth is not empowering them will stagnate you, imagine if Jesus was the only one doing the teaching and the miracles. The gospel would probably not have reached you today. He empowered his disciples to go in pairs to preach the good news and heal the sick even before he died Luke 10:1-12. You have not truly learnt a process until you can teach another to do it as good as you can. Also, the ‘fear’ of relevance is good for you because it will keep you from being complacent. God told Moses that they have compassed the mountain long enough, it is time to go northward Deu 2:3. Now that you have given away those skills that gave you the edge, it is time to acquire and perfect new ones. It is your season for progress.

If you have not made Jesus Christ your Lord and saviour, then life here is anchorless and eternity is bleak. We urge you, don’t wait another moment. Make up your mind and say this prayer:

“Dear God, I ask you to forgive me all my sins and make me anew. I believe that Jesus died for me and you raised him up on the third day, I confess that He is Lord now and forever. I accept your son, Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour.”

Congratulations! Now that you are born again, look for a Bible believing church to attend that you might know what he has provided for you.