The Delegation Framework that Every Senior Leader Needs to Know

PS: this strategy might just change how you split chores at home, too.

One of the first big milestones in unlocking your potential as a senior leader is learning how to effectively delegate.

I’ve coached dozens of leaders on this, and I’ve lived it myself as a VP in Corporate America with three (almost 4!) young kids and a constantly overbooked calendar. Delegation is one of the most important and most challenging skills to master in your leadership growth journey.

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I received this question from a follower on Instagram over the weekend.

“Any suggestions on delegation as a senior leader? I’m new to senior leadership and having a hard time balancing delegating and not micromanaging across different levels.”

Ask yourself what is really holding you back from delegating? It’s usually not just “it’s too much work” or “I want it done right.” Go one layer deeper. What’s holding you back at the most atomic level?

When I ask senior leaders why they aren’t delegating work, the most common deep-rooted issue is that they perceive the delegation of responsibility leads to degradation of work quality.

In order to parse this blocker, we first need to talk about the theory of comparative advantage (bear with me, I promise this is going somewhere).

Why you should understand comparative advantage

The theory of comparative advantage is the idea that even if one person is better at doing everything, it’s still more beneficial for them to focus on the things that they are relatively best at and to let others do the rest. Ultimately, this approach leads to greater overall efficiency for the team.

Here’s why I think this matters. You are probably better than your team at doing A LOT. Maybe a majority of their work. (This might not be true if you did not ‘climb the ranks’ within the team/company/industry, but if you are promoted from within, you likely can run circles around your team.)

Just because you are better at something does not mean that you should spend your time on that something. Instead you should focus on the thing that only you can do best, and delegate the rest.

My favorite (and slightly painful) Personal Example

Let’s take an an example from my real life:

I can create a spreadsheet that will rival all others. And the kicker is that I actually really like to do it. I’m good at it; it provides me with a nice and tidy sense of accomplishment'; it’s very comfortable for me.

But that is not the thing that I’m relatively best at on my team.

I’m the best at creating a strategic opportunity with a client. I’m the best at explaining our strategy to investors, senior leaders, and external partners. Those are the things that I have a significant comparative advantage over others.

As an objective peer - you would tell me that I should delegate my spreadsheet responsibilities and instead invest more time in my strategic work.

‘Delegate more’ advice is hard to apply to ourselves. I often see leaders limit themselves by staying in their comfort zone of metaphorical spreadsheets rather than capitalizing on their comparative advantages.

Real Word Example: What Comparative Advantage Looks Like

Let’s pretend that you have an objective review of your skills vs. your team’s skills.

You are:

• A at writing strategy decks

• A+ at building a team budget

• B at building dashboards in excel

Your team is:

• C+ at writing strategy decks

• B at budgeting

• B- at excel dashboards

Even though you are better at all three skills, your comparative advantage is writing the strategy deck. And that is the highest-leverage work that aligns with your role as a senior leader.

When you delegate budgeting and excel dashboards, you should expect to get a degradation in work quality, because you can do it better than your team member. I’m just acknowledging that it won’t be all sunshine and roses when you delegate work to others.

Even if we stopped here, your team’s total output and impact would be higher if you took on the strategy deck work and your team owned the budgeting and dashboards. But we aren’t going to stop here.

How to delegate effectively

Now that you know what you want to delegate, let’s talk about how you delegate effectively.

First thing, you need to recognize that delegated work needs a longer lead time. Let me explain. Remember that you are an A+ at building a budget, right? This means that you probably can build a budget in very little time, that looks excellent, and has the appropriate built in assumptions documented. Your team is a B at budgeting. Meaning that their first iteration is going to take longer and be less comprehensive than your first iteration.

The best way you can prepare for this is to give them the longest lead time you can on the task.

Tactically, let’s say you have to deliver a budget by next Friday morning. In your mind you might have pulled that together next Thursday, because you are very good and you know exactly how much effort it will take. This is especially true if the output is only dependent on you and not others.

You CANNOT delegate this work effectively if you wait until next Thursday.

You need to delegate the work ASAP, and then establish checkpoints for your team so that the output deliverable is high quality. Your goal here is to establish a timeline that supports iteration so that you do not get sucked back into doing the work yourself.

How you might do that:

1. Delegate the work now and ask for a draft due on this Thursday

2. Schedule yourself a block to review the work and provide feedback (async or live) by Friday close of business.

3. Ask for a second iteration by next Tuesday.

4. Schedule yourself a block to review the work and provide feedback by Wednesday.

5. Ask for the final deliverable by Thursday AM. This gives you one more day to catch/improve/etc the deliverable.

6. Have your team submit the final product on Friday AM.

If you are thinking, gosh that sounds like a lot more work than just doing it myself, you’d be correct. But you should look at this as an investment. This will get better. Your team won’t ask the same questions twice, they will learn. You will open up long-term capacity on your calendar for a short-term investment of delegating and building skills within others.

If the budget is not that critical of an item, reduce the iteration/draft/review cycles and let them submit “B” work. Only you know how important the quality is. Not everything needs to be “A” level work.

How to apply comparative advantage at work

Practical next steps for applying comparative advantage framework in real life to your work. I suggest you block 30m on your calendar for this exercise (start now, repeat weekly until you are a pro at it).

• Look at the next tasks, meetings, events, deliverables.

• Do not ask yourself “Can I do this?”

• Instead ask yourself “Is this the best use of my time relative to everything else I am uniquely positioned to do?

Then, take the tasks, meetings, events, deliverables, and EMAILs (oh god don’t forget the emails), and prepare them for delegation.

Before you send out that request to your team and delegate the work, I recommend that you have a 1x1 conversation with your team and explain this concept and how you will be approaching work going forward. Talk about it in terms of “what’s in it for them” instead of feeling guilty for giving them more work.

What’s in it for them:

• They will get an opportunity to learn comparative advantage before they get to a senior leadership level and will be well poised for success at their next promotion

• Opportunity for them to grow, feel ownership, and build capability

• Additional exposure for them with key stakeholders and leaders

• Support for them as they apply comparative advantage to their work and teams

Delegate and wait. Be prepared to adjust, pivot, and revise your approach over time. Perfection is not the goal; progress is the goal.

Measure yourself and your team in terms of outcomes and overall impact.

What about at home?

Maybe you’ve made it all the way to the end of this, and you see a clear application of this mindset in your home.

I’m not suggesting that you are a senior leader over your partner. I’m not suggesting that you should treat your partner like your subordinate.

But what I am suggesting is that you should inspect your effort spent in the house and consider what you actually have a comparative advantage versus your partner. What are you uniquely capable of doing?

In the case for a breastfeeding mom, you are uniquely capable of feeding the baby at the breast and pumping milk. You may be faster at washing pump parts, but that is a relative advantage for you, not a unique advantage.

Remember that practice develops gains. If you have always washed the bottles or done the laundry or bathed the kids, you will be better at those tasks than your partner. But it does not mean that you have a unique comparative advantage.

Just food for thought as you consider the stress and burnout that comes along with doing it all yourself, at work and at home.

If this post resonated with you, I’d love to hear how you’re thinking about delegation at work or at home in the comments!

And if you know another working mom in leadership who’s stuck doing it all, would you do her a favor and share this with her?

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