{"id":786,"date":"2016-12-21T10:00:09","date_gmt":"2016-12-21T10:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/?p=786"},"modified":"2025-07-01T17:20:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T17:20:23","slug":"art-delegation-one-key-skills-entrepreneur-must-master","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/art-delegation-one-key-skills-entrepreneur-must-master\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;The art of delegation is one of the key skills any entrepreneur must master.&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The stereotypical entrepreneur is a guy running around with his or her hair on fire, pushing all the buttons, pulling all the levers, and wearing all the hats.\u00a0 We\u2019re all wired a little bit differently, but ultimately, we all reach the limit of what we can do alone, and when we do reach that point, with a plate already full or overflowing, we don\u2019t have the capacity to tackle new opportunities.\u00a0 Mentally and physically, we\u2019re out of gas.\u00a0 As a result, the company stalls out and its growth track goes flat.\u00a0 Obviously, when this happens, the owner has two choices: either start sharing the load (delegating) or accept the fact that the company has gone as far as it can go.\u00a0 Most company owners recognize this intellectually, but emotionally they have a tough time letting go of activities and responsibilities that they have always reserved for themselves.\u00a0 Does this sound like you?\u00a0\u00a0 If so, please continue reading below for some thoughts on how you can get around this roadblock.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;The art of delegation is one of the key skills any entrepreneur must master.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>~ Sir Richard Branson<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Famed business author and lecturer Stephen Covey has weighed in on this too.\u00a0 He says, \u201cPeople and organizations don&#8217;t grow much without delegation . . . because they are confined to the capacities of the boss and reflect both personal strengths and weaknesses.\u201d\u00a0 So why do so many small company business owners strangle their companies by insisting on doing everything themselves?\u00a0 There are many reasons, but here are the most common ones:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>They lack trust. They have convinced themselves (usually without any basis in fact) that nobody can do what they do as competently, as rigorously, or as responsibly as they can.<\/li>\n<li>They lack trust 2. In some cases, in order for someone else to perform adequately, the owner might have to share company information that he or she has kept under lock and key and doesn\u2019t really want to share . . . payroll information, sales data, profit and loss stats, etc.<\/li>\n<li>They lack patience. They don\u2019t want to take the time to train someone else to handle any of their responsibilities.\u00a0 Typically, you\u2019ll hear them say, \u201cWhat the heck!\u00a0 By the time I train someone to do this, I could have done it myself.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>They lack courage. They\u2019ve been doing what they\u2019re doing for a long time.\u00a0 They\u2019re good at it.\u00a0 They\u2019re comfortable with it.\u00a0 They feel safe.\u00a0 Leaving all this nice, safe stuff and venturing outside of their comfort zone makes them feel insecure.<\/li>\n<li>They lack a management team. When an owner is wearing all the hats, he or she may legitimately complain that all the employees are worker bees without the proper experience or training to handle upper level management tasks.<\/li>\n<li>They lack will power. Owners will often gravitate to duties and responsibilities that they consider to be the \u201cfun\u201d parts of the business.\u00a0 In their view, doing what they enjoy is one of the perks of ownership, and they just can\u2019t bring themselves to give any of that up.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So how do you get around some of these problems and become a world class delegator?<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Find ways to allow yourself to trust people. You can\u2019t possibly delegate duties and responsibilities to people if you can\u2019t trust them to competently and faithfully carry them out.\u00a0 If you feel you need the legal protection of non-compete or non-disclosure agreements, fine . . . put them in place.\u00a0 If you feel you need to test people on small assignments before giving them big assignments, do that.\u00a0 If you want to see how they handle low level company information before you let them in on the more important stuff, that\u2019s fine too.\u00a0 Do what you need to do to develop trusting relationships with those around you or effective delegation will be impossible.<\/li>\n<li>Accept the fact that this is not about you. It\u2019s about the company reaching its potential.\u00a0 So put aside your personal fears, concerns, likes, and dislikes, and focus on what the company needs from you.\u00a0 Decide which of your activities provide the most leverage for moving the company forward, and concentrate on those.\u00a0 Get someone else to do the other stuff.<\/li>\n<li>Get over yourself. It\u2019s unlikely that you\u2019re the only person on the planet who can do what you do, so stop pretending that you are.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t have such a person already on board, then go out and find him or her.<\/li>\n<li>Don\u2019t insist that people to whom you are delegating do things \u201cyour way.\u201d Just because you\u2019ve always done things a certain way doesn\u2019t mean that\u2019s the only way or even the best way.\u00a0 Pay attention to the outcomes people achieve and don\u2019t worry so much about how they achieve them.<\/li>\n<li>Take joy in being a coach or mentor who helps people grow. Effective delegation gives them an opportunity to do something new and interesting and challenging.\u00a0 When you fail to delegate effectively, you rob them of those opportunities and leave them with routine, boring, mind-numbing tasks.\u00a0 Ultimately, if they\u2019re denied those growth opportunities with you, they\u2019ll go find them somewhere else.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>In poorly managed companies, particularly in those where job security is a constant concern, people are allowed to horde information and skills in hopes of making themselves indispensable.\u00a0 In well-run companies, when delegation is working optimally, people at all levels of the organization are encouraged to push duties and responsibilities down to the lowest level at which they can be competently done.<\/p>\n<p>When effective delegation is not present in a company, too many duties and responsibilities become concentrated in too few hands, resulting in an organization that is sluggish, top-heavy, and bureaucratic.\u00a0 Effective delegation requires commitment and a good deal of work.\u00a0 It involves building trust, coaching and mentoring, and helping people to develop new skills, but the payoff is huge.\u00a0 Duties and responsibilities are more evenly distributed throughout the organization and everyone is able to participate in the activities of the company at a level that is appropriate for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The stereotypical entrepreneur is a guy running around with his or her hair on fire, pushing all the buttons, pulling all the levers, and wearing all the hats.\u00a0 We\u2019re all wired a little bit differently, but ultimately, we all reach the limit of what we can do alone, and when we do reach that point,<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/art-delegation-one-key-skills-entrepreneur-must-master\/\">Read More\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,36,33,29,26,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":789,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions\/789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}