Senior roles are characterized by big-picture, high-level strategic work that requires effective delegation. And yet, while, most leaders understand this, the practice of sharing work and relinquishing control can be astoundingly difficult. 

In a recent Harvard Business Review article, MIT Sloan Senior Lecturer Elsbeth Johnson shares her findings on why even experienced leaders may struggle to delegate and how they can unlock better productivity for organizations as a whole by doing so.

Understanding the Stakes

While leaders may presume they’re driving better outcomes by executing in lieu of assigning, a lack of delegation can actually do more harm than good in the following ways:

• Resources are misused, as higher-paid employees (leaders) perform tasks that lower-level employees were hired to do.
• Micromanagement saps employee productivity and growth.
• Leaders are too busy to dedicate appropriate time to key job responsibilities, including executive strategy, people management, relationship-building, and career development.

Most leaders know they need to delegate, but struggle to do so for several reasons. One challenge is deciding what to delegate, and for that, Johnson offers a simple litmus test—leaders should ask, “Am I the best and cheapest person to get this done?” She lays out two key distinctions that support this process:

• Context-setting: Why the work matters, how team members should collaborate to do it, the expected results, and the deadline
• Activity-based work: What work should be done to achieve the context-related goal

According to Johnson, context-setting is the leader's responsibility when delegating, and all other decisions (the activity-based work) should be left to their team. This keeps team members motivated and accountable—they also “typically have more on-the-ground insight to drive good choices.”

Four Primary Obstacles to Delegation—and How to Surpass Them

Delegation is hard for good reason. Based on extensive research and experience advising senior leadership, Johnson shares the most common reasons leaders take on too much and offers practical alternatives to address the issue.

1. Productivity Feels Good

When humans accomplish something, MIT brain scans reveal that small hits of dopamine are released. Not surprisingly, activity-based approaches are more likely to produce dopamine than context-setting—the latter can actually create a dopamine deficit due to its inherent difficulty. 

Interventions include (1) creating checklists for context-setting so leaders can still cross things off, (2) using routines, like a standard list of questions for one-to-ones, and (3) focusing on higher-level, longer-term priorities and achievements, as opposed to short-lived dopamine hits.

2. Employees Seek Out Help

Team member questions can pull leaders back into activity-based work unless they create boundaries around guidance and involvement level. 

When addressing team members asks, leaders can (1) remind colleagues about the task or project’s established context, especially the why, (2) turn the team member’s question around supportively, so they can try to answer it, (3) give examples from a leader’s own experience to assist without solving the problem, and (4) balance accountability and support by encouraging independence while promising to remain available.. 

3. Higher-ups Expect Details

As Johnson observes, “Some leaders are pulled back into the activity zone not by the people below them in the org chart but by those above.” When a leader’s superiors expect more visibility than leadership necessarily requires, it can be beneficial to remind them of the need for positive outcomes, rather than close inspection of the work producing those outcomes. 

Interventions include (1) starting small to build trust, (2) encouraging that leadership hold firm on accountability related to outcomes, (3) bringing team members into executive meetings to show their expertise, and (4) scoping further out over time as team authority is established. 

4. Deep-Rooted Beliefs About Work

Many leaders are conditioned to believe “that real work is activity-based.” Johnson’s research indicates the persistence of this especially in more technical roles where skillsets inform identity: among lawyers, surgeons, research scientists, and salespeople. It can be hard to delegate when technical execution has prompted someone’s ascension to leadership.

Potential approaches include (1) being cognizant of one’s limits (and the counter-productivity of surpassing them), (2) critically examining whether leadership is the right fit, and (3) working to encourage the organization at large to value context-setting.

Addressing these challenges is a long-term practice, and the shifts required to overcome them can take time. Johnson urges leaders to be patient but persistent, since effective delegation ultimately allows everyone to shine. 

Read the full article here or learn from Johnson firsthand in her immersive courses, Leading Strategic Change: How to Really Deliver the Shift Your Organization Needs and the Women's Leadership Program.