In the last post, Delegating Part 1: Why it makes good financial sense, I explained that delegating is so important because leaders are paid for their leadership, not for their ability to do their employees’ tasks. Now, with that said, there are exceptions to this rule. Perhaps the president of your college taught an undergraduate course, despite his faculty costing less to teach the same course. Perhaps the owner of your restaurant greets patrons, despite her hosts’ costing less to do the same task.

The college president and the restauranteur made decisions to do these tasks because the impact that their participation has on their companies outweighs the cost of their time spent on the task. In other words, their face time with and experience of the students and the restaurant patrons is more valuable than what they’d be saving by having cheaper employees do those tasks. Let me walk you through how I navigated one of these leadership dilemmas. 

I have facilitated a weekly support group for years. Facilitating this group was a responsibility assigned to me 2 jobs ago. However, it is one that I have strategically and purposefully chosen to keep, despite having employees who cost the agency less per hour, and who are qualified to facilitate the group. Here is my rationale. 

First, I facilitate this group because it keeps me grounded in the work that my team does every hour of every day. My team facilitates several groups throughout the week. Maintaining a group keeps me connected to their experiences, their struggles, and their successes. As a manager in a non-profit, one can grow estranged from the work, especially if the management role is set up to be disconnected from the people you’re helping. Therefore, my second reason for facilitating the group is because I want to stay connected to the people whom we’re helping. This prevents me from being out of touch with the trends in clients’ lives. I can hear first hand about what their going through and rely on that to help me shape the program operations and offerings.

So, even though an hour of me facilitating a group costs the agency more than an hour of another facilitator doing the same thing, the cost is outweighed by the value that such an hour has on the overall functioning of the agency. That hour is an investment in the leadership that I can provide to my team, to our clients, and the agency. If you’re in a position of leadership, or even just one in which your skills are advanced and your rate is higher than others, think about the tasks that you do that are technically outside your job description, and meant for others. Think about why you do them. Is it because no one else can do them as well as you, or because you doing them reconnects you with the mission of the company and the experiences of your team? Let go of the ones that fall into the first category. As for the ones in the second category, choose 1 or 2 that stand out to you as extremely meaningful and important, both to your role and to the company. These types of tasks should account for a very small percentage of your time—1-2 hours per week really. And be sure that you communicate why you’re doing them so that it is clear that it is not an issue of failed delegating and instead is actually a success in leadership.

This is a tricky one. Do you have questions or thoughts about when to delegate and when to keep a meaningful assignment? Share your leadership dilemmas with us in the comments below!