Every week I select five excellent posts from this week’s independent business blogs. This week, I’m pointing you to posts on recognition, trust, performance management, delegating, and planning….

That this post brings up your fear of not being a good manager/leader actually demonstrates your commitment to being one. Most people have room for us to be less than perfect if they know we are committed to them and to learning and getting better at what we do.

I’ve seen many a well-meaning person say “but I’m too busy to delegate”. Or, “it’s quicker if I just do it myself.” And I think if they stepped back, and realized the steps they need to take to delegate effectively, there would be no doubt it was the right thing to do. The other thing I’ve seen in abdication vs. delegation is when person A gives the job to person B, and then makes it clear they have no further time – for questions, for help, for feedback when the task is completed. And finally, I think that anyone can benefit from your advice, Susan, about the *negotiation* part of the equation – realizing that you, as the person being delegate TO, should always have that option, would be empowering to all involved.

I also find that a common cause of abdication is the fear or uncertainty of something that the individual does not understand.

Rather than questioning and researching – it is simply abdicated to that second party.

I think too that it is tempting to “lob” assignments to others that we don’t fully understand ourselves. I’m not suggesting that we should know exactly how to execute an assignment before we delegate it, but we should have a good enough grasp on the concept; how it fits into the overall scheme of things; and a rough idea of what it might look like when its done right before we even think about delegating it.
Tossing someone an assignment that we don’t clearly understand holds great potential for failure and most certainly smacks of abdication to me.

Another great thought-provoking post, Susan.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by SusanMazza: When Delgation Becomes Abdication http://bit.ly/9C9GLx Do you have any examples to share that we can all learn from? #leadchange…