Podcast: How to Get Delegation Right, Part 3 of 3

“When someone has worked long and hard on something, and it literally feels like a baby to them, it’s hard to let go and let someone else kind of make it their own,” says Brenda Ellington-Booth, a clinical professor of management and organizations at Kellogg.

In our final episode on delegation, Ask Insight talks about trust and how to give it.

(You can find episode 1 here and episode 2 here.)

Podcast Transcript

Laura PAVIN: You’re listening to The Insightful Leader. I’m Laura Pavin.

On this edition of Ask Insight, we’ve been talking to Kellogg professor and executive coach Brenda Ellington Booth about delegation.

The stakes can be high. So as a manager, you have to be able to trust that your employees will rise to the occasion.

Today, on the last of our three-part Ask Insight episode on delegation, Ellington-Booth talks to us about the pivotal role that trust plays in it. Kellogg Insight editor in chief, Jess Love, talked with her about that. And we actually ended up digging into something that happened on the Insight team recently. Something that was a little more of the crisis-management variety, I should say, but it required Jess to trust us to handle something in the event that it happened. And it did, indeed, happen.

But we’ll get to that. First, Jess kicks us off:

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Jess LOVE: I have read a little bit in the psych literature that there does seem to be some evidence that trusting people will in turn make them more trustworthy.

Brenda ELLINGTON-BOOTH: Mm hmm.

LOVE: So I guess the way to sort of extrapolate that to a management situation is if you do trust your team with tasks that you might otherwise want to hoard, that is a good way to kind of nudge them into rising to the occasion. Is that something that you have experienced yourself?

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: To a degree. And to me, trust has many components to it. So there’s trust in terms of just competence. Do you trust that person to get the job done right? Then there’s an element of reliability as well. You know, can I really trust that person to not only get the work done right, but to do it in a fashion that might be common sense to some people, but not to others? Under-promise over-deliver. And that’s an assumption that a lot of people have in their work, kind of their psyche, but that might not be embedded in someone else’s psyche. Where is that level in how much they can trust someone? Do they do the right thing? You know, and hopefully that’s just table stakes. You know, you don’t have to worry about that, but in some organizations, quite frankly, it can be an issue.

I mean, I’ve worked for like a high-frequency trading organization. I was coaching some of their senior leaders and, I mean, that’s an area where there’s innovations all the time, and then there’s rules. But then it was more about, well, if whatever governmental agency were really scrutinizing this, would they be okay with it? And because the innovation was so innovated, it’s like, I don’t know, you know? And so it’s like, should we go with it or not? And if a junior person is really gung-ho, you want to trust that person and encourage their creativity and see how it goes, but then you don’t want them to kind of take the reins too much because it can backfire.

LOVE: Oh yeah, you can get shut down.

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: Exactly. You can go to jail. [laughs]

LOVE: [laughs] Okay. Yeah. Now everybody is listening to this podcast thinking, if I delegate more, I will go to jail.

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: Yeah. No, that’s not ... yeah. But it just goes to the point that managing people is really hard. You know, it’s not thinking like checkers. It’s like playing 3D chess.

LOVE: Mhm. Mhm. And this is very fresh in my memory, but sometimes delegation can happen without you knowing or being ready. So even just yesterday, we were doing a webinar. We had, you know, a thousand people live on Zoom and my Wi-Fi cuts out. I’ve done 30 webinars in the same exact spot. It’s gone.

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: My biggest nightmare.

LOVE: And I had somebody on my team, Laura, over here. She was prepared to step in seamlessly. We had a backup in case this happened, and I think it went great. And I ... so, like speaking now, very frankly, I’m glad it happened because it was a great opportunity for everybody to realize like, oh, things can still go wrong and you can still have a team that is there to like step right in and function well. And it maybe just takes a tiny bit of pressure off of future webinars.

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: Yeah, absolutely. But thinking about kind of those what-if scenarios, let’s make sure that we’re ready just in case, is really helpful. And just, you had to let go in the moment.

LOVE: Oh, there was no choice. I was letting go. Yeah.

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: The internet let you go.

LOVE: Laura, what was that moment like for you?

PAVIN: You know, definitely was not expecting it because like you said, it’s been such a solid connection, Wi-Fi connection, in that room for you where I was just like, I just didn’t expect it. But I luckily was like wearing, you know, a sweater and not like pajamas. And, uh ... but I really felt supported because Jess had put all the, and the team had put all the infrastructure in place so that if and when the moment did happen, I would be able to sound smart and not silly on the microphone. And I feel like I tricked the audience into thinking I was just like this, this brilliant person. This good host, um.

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: Well, I’m sure you didn’t trick. You, you knew what you were doing.

PAVIN: So I was like, yeah, yeah. So I felt ready.

LOVE: And I actually felt surprisingly calm. Like I had a couple people ask me afterwards, like, “Oh, that must’ve been so stressful for you.” And to be honest, as soon as I knew for sure that my team knew that my Wi-Fi was down, I was like, Oh, they got this. And I was almost surprised and really grateful at how confident I was.

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: Yeah. Well, that’s great. That says you had a lot of trust in your team.

LOVE: I did.

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: Yeah.

LOVE: Well, now this has just turned into a Kellogg Insight therapy session.

PAVIN: Brenda says she often feels like a therapist when she’s talking to managers about delegation. It’s surprisingly emotional! Sometimes delegating means losing a part of your job that you love—maybe even that shapes your identity.

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: I was talking to someone the other day where she was telling me that, well, “this part of the job I really love.” You know, it was creative, it was energizing, and that was probably one of the reasons why she took the job in the first place. But now she had gotten to the point where she moved up in the organization, and it was really time to let go of that, her kind of baby.

And, and particularly when someone has worked long and hard on something and it literally feels like a baby to them, it’s hard to let go and let someone else kind of make it their own, recognizing that child is not going to look like it did when you handed it off.

LOVE: Mm hmm. And how do you coach somebody through that kind of grief in a way?

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: It is grief. It is loss. It’s really about making sure they understand, reminding them of what their job really is at that point in time. And I can say, well, you can not delegate that. But what are the consequences of you not delegating and getting people to think that through on their own? Usually people arrive at the right conclusion.

It’s like I know I love it. But this person really needs that experience, and it would free up more time for me to do the other 12 things on my list that are new that maybe are not so fun or interesting or [where] I’m going through my own learning curve. Yeah, it’s just that growth, and growth is ... you know, when you think about growth in general, you know, you heard the term “growing pains.” I mean, growth is not necessarily an easy process for anyone. And there’s a part of grief and loss that goes with it, but then hopefully there’s also, to counterbalance that, the opportunity to learn more about yourself, and for you to grow and develop as well, and for you just to learn more about you. And it’s like, you know, maybe being a manager or leader in this organization is not really what they want.

LOVE: Mm hmm.

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: It’s, to me it’s like 99 percent emotion. Really, it’s about loss. It’s about grief, but it’s also about excitement. It’s about, you know, we are human beings, you know, hopefully won’t be replaced by AI too soon, but that emotional component is just part and parcel of who we are. And recognizing those emotions of fear is real.

Fear happens all the time in the workplace, just, you know, fear of like not screwing up. And there’s so much pressure that people are experiencing. It is challenging.

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PAVIN: Delegation is not easy. It’s about training and trust and confidence. And if you care about your work, it can feel personal.

When Jess trusted me to jump in when her Wi-Fi failed, that was partly crisis management. She had no choice—the webinar had started, and someone had to lead it. But she trusted me enough to succeed her in the event that catastrophe struck. And in fact, even when her Wi-Fi kicked back on, she had me finish out the webinar, rather than jumping in to do it herself. So, we both knew that I was ready.

If any of us hope to grow in our jobs or to help others grow in theirs, delegation is crucial. Hopefully, you now have a little more clarity on how to delegate with intention.

Play to your employees’ strengths. Give clear expectations and constructive feedback. Avoid delegating when the stakes are too high, but don’t forget about the relational aspects of your work. And recognize that this can be emotional, both for your employees who might feel some growing pains and for you.

With that, it’s time for us at Kellogg Insight to trust you. Armed with Brenda Ellington Booth’s guidance, go forth and delegate. We’ll see you next time.

[CREDITS]

PAVIN: This episode of The Insightful Leader was produced and mixed by Isabel Robertson. It was produced and edited by Laura Pavin, Jessica Love, Fred Schmalz, Abraham Kim, Maja Kos, and Blake Goble. Special thanks to Brenda Ellington-Booth. Want more The Insightful Leader episodes? You can find us on iTunes, Spotify, or our website: insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu. We’ll be back soon with another episode of The Insightful Leader podcast.