Delegation: Wearing, Collecting and Handing out Different Hats

Supervision can have so many challenging “watch out” moments once you decide to seek a promotion and take on more leadership responsibilities. Delegation can be one of those traps and also one of those skills. It can be an art.

Deciding when, how and to whom you delegate assignments can influence your organizational culture and effectiveness. Sometimes, you can get in your own way.

Wearing Different Hats

When you move into a leadership position, it might be awfully tempting to hold onto the things you do well because that’s why you got promoted in the first place. Remember, you have different hats to wear now with your new responsibilities, and they may take time to grow into. You’re becoming a new-career version of yourself with a different role. It’s important and necessary to embrace new hats and let go of the ones you’ve outgrown.

Collecting Different Hats

Once you’re established in your leadership role, you’ll likely have the pulse of your team in terms of who has which skills, how they generally operate, and what their goals are. You might have taken on a few extra responsibilities with staff turnover, program changes or new priorities. While collecting different duties may reinforce your importance (real or perceived) to your operation, there’s a choice to be made. You can forge on, or you can pause to recalibrate. Ask yourself:

Are these part of my actual duties or job description?
Are these extras taking me away from more important things?

Hey, I collect things too, but I propose that time-wasting, non-important tasks are not helping you be successful in the position you were hired into.

Handing out Different Hats

While regularly checking in with yourself on the hats you’re wearing and/or collecting and why, let’s look at handing them out, or delegating. Engaging with your team will help you determine who should have what opportunities. You’ve established baselines on skill sets, abilities, productivity and outcomes. You might also have discussed career trajectories and goals. There will be moments where something simply needs to get done, yet I challenge you to look deeper:

Where can delegating help propel a colleague into career growth?
Where can you stretch their skills and confidence level?
How can delegating this project help them reach their potential?

Giving colleagues new opportunities helps their progress, supports your staff succession planning, and builds strong relationships as colleagues know you’re supporting them.

One Size Doesn’t Fit All

Developing your relationship with delegation takes time, and even as you go, it can be uncertain or uncomfortable. Delegating doesn’t take anything away from you, your worth, or your contributions. It is vital to operational success by providing you time and space to oversee your operation, ensure tasks are being accomplished and help others build skills and experience. Effective delegation will reinforcement your leadership prowess and, hopefully, will encourage your supervisor to tip their own hat to you.

Matt Wallat serves as a District Ranger with the National Park Service (NPS) in Colorado. His 20-year career spans eight different NPS units in six different states with assignments in patrol, investigations, program development, court liaison, training officer, and supervisor for 11+ years.

With a strong background in employee development, Matt is an active agency instructor/presenter, continues to evolve with his coaching practice, creates leadership development programs, engages in curriculum design work, and led a recent international training program in Tanzania.

He enjoys family time and many other interests including fly fishing, creative DIY projects, music, craft beer and Boston sports.