Peer to Peer Magazine

BEST PRACTICES Fearless Delegation: How to Give Up Authority to Gain a Great Team “Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere as long as the policy you’ve decided upon is being carried out.” –– Ronald Reagan elegation: Should I or shouldn’t I? You should. Delegation is good for you, your team and your organization. For the purposes of this article, we’ll define delegation as giving decision-making authority to your employees. That authority is crucial, because without it, you are not delegating, but simply assigning tasks. Delegating decision-making authority is essential because it creates freedom for you and a sense of empowerment for the team. D CREATING A CONTRACT OF TRUST When you delegate, you create an implicit contract, one that is built on mutual trust. Your job as a leader is to build a team that you trust. If you feel that you can’t delegate to your team, you’ve failed in your role as a leader. For example, I knew of a partner at another firm who built a team with no trust. This partner would ask the associates to draft all correspondence, after which point she would review the correspondence and then send out the e-mail messages as her own. The associates were not allowed any contact with the clients. Several of the associates on the team were five- and six-year attorneys, but they struggled every day. The partner had to review every piece of correspondence related to her cases. Eventually, the associates all left the firm, mainly because the partner 20 www.iltanet.org Peer to Peer trusted no one. Though this partner is still practicing law and doing well financially, I suspect she is not very happy because she didn’t build a team to support her. WHEN YOU FAIL TO DELEGATE When you don’t delegate, you put yourself in a tough situation. You are responsible for everything, which is unwise and unhealthy. With the recent economic challenges, we’re all doing more with less. If you are not delegating decision-making authority, you are not using resources you would be smart to use. Relax, try it, and you might be surprised by how well it goes. Just remember to set appropriate guidelines and parameters, and everything will be fine. WHEN YOUR STAFF FAILS TO ACHIEVE Sometimes, no matter what you do, a team member just can’t seem to get it together. Provide direct feedback often. Try to learn what motivates them. Some of my team respond to praise, others respond to mitigating exposure for the firm, still others procrastinate and then step up at the last second. Once you’ve learned what motivates someone, use that power judiciously. If they are still failing, do the right thing and let them go. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out.

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