> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.peterkos.org/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Chapter 6: Delegate. Delegate. Delegate. - URL: https://www.peterkos.org/chapter-6-delegate-delegate-delegate/ - Published: 2021-04-09T17:37:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-18T16:48:44.000Z - Author: Peter Kos - Tags: Zero BS Leader, .books, #ChallengeAccepted > Micromanager is Latin for a boss who can't delegate. > —Peter Kos There is a reason why I repeated the word *Delegate* three times. Delegation is the thing that every first-time manager struggles with, yet very few consider it being their weakness or an area to figure out. Having heard and admired all the hands-on managers and leaders joining their teams in the trenches, we were led to believe that the best managers and leaders are the ones who can- and do— the same jobs their teams are doing. Delegation is what sets apart bad managers from leaders. And in my book, *micromanager* is Latin for a boss who can’t delegate. The inability to delegate is often seen after we’ve been promoted from within. It’s tough to let go of your old job and let someone else do it. I know, I’ve been there. When you have to let another team member take over your job, or you hire a new person, they’ll never do it as you’ve done it. So we step in and *help* them. But we’re not actually helping; we’re preventing them from doing their job and at the same time preventing ourselves from doing our new job, wasting double resources! I was fortunate enough to have a very experienced mentor once I became a manager. He immediately pointed to the delegation as the main thing I have to master. It took me time to understand why it really is a challenge. At some point, I decided to put full trust in the person taking over my old job and stay away. I purposefully didn’t want to look into or hear any details for some time. And guess what — there was no disaster — the person took over and did the job their way, and it was even better than I’ve done it before. It takes guts to admit that, and you have to keep reminding yourself that you’re not competing against your team; the better they are, the better you are. There are many reasons we’re struggling to delegate, and most of the first-time managers will cite the learning curves of new people or the clients who *are used to working with me,* and many other very sound and valid reasons. The truth is, they are all wrong reasons. You have to move on, let others take over, and your clients will move on as well. You can’t let them jump over their new contact and work with you. It won’t scale. You can be polite, delegate the task back to your successor, and then follow up with the client to confirm their satisfaction. Repeat until they go there directly without coming to you. Once I entered the managerial ranks, I started focusing on what’s my actual job. It’s not the operational stuff anymore; it’s more about the tactical and strategic levels, orchestrating others' activities to produce some good music. And once I started focusing on that, I’d struggle to find time to do the operational work, so I was forced to delegate. It worked. One thing is to develop a delegation routine and then adjust it to how people work and think. When working with my teams, I learned to notice how some people prefer written delegation and others verbal. Some work best when given full freedom to be creative, while others need templates to fill out. We can’t expect everyone to work the same. Some need regular check-ins during the project; others will deliver the final version without asking. Some need reminders; others will respect the agreed deadlines. Making an effort to notice will help you understand and take that into consideration. I’ve worked with people who were 100% reliable to deliver in time, and for others, I had to set deadlines way before my *real* deadline, as I knew they tend to be late. Learn to build in some slack for any corrections and updates. And when people struggle, it’s better to help them, not doing it instead of them. At first, helping might seem to take more time, but in the long run, helping scales — doing instead doesn’t. Keep that in mind. It is our duty as managers to discover and amplify opportunities for increased productivity and scale. Every day. ## How about dealing with challenges? I’m not sure where I read this first, but the following analogy stuck with me. Imagine that a problem is a monkey. Your team member walks into your office with a monkey on their shoulders, asking for help. The worst thing you can do is take that monkey and put it on your shoulders. You can help them, advise them, guide, and coach — but once they leave your office, that monkey has to stay on their shoulders. Any other option is a failure. ## Delegation as a people-development tool. Another trick I learned from one of my managers: using delegation to help people develop. Extra assignments that fall outside of the regular job description can be motivating for an ambitious employee. Think about that special task you’ve been given or an idea you had but no time to execute. Now connect the dots to one of your teammates who already mastered their current role and is looking for new challenges. Assigning a special project will keep them busy, motivated, help build their brand, **and** get the thing done without you doing it. How about that? And then if you can help them present their work to their peers, and maybe even to your bosses and peers, it strengthens the brand of your entire team and you as their leader. Win. Win. Win. These are just some of the ideas to help you think about delegation differently. I’d advise any first-time manager to put any task or a project through a delegation grinder by asking the following questions: - How can I delegate this? - Who is the best delegate - What are the benefits of delegating it - Why shouldn’t I delegate it? We all have to learn that delegating something doesn’t diminish its importance. Delegating means finding the best person to do it; the importance is only marked by how close we stay to tracking it. This is something we agree with the delegate. ## The Cycle of Promise The Cycle of Promise is a very effective delegation technique I learned through coaching. It’s basically a way of describing the steps required for the successful completion of a request. We have two stakeholders: a Requestor and a Performer. The Requestor is the one asking a Performer to do something. As a Requestor, you need to make sure to set: - clear roles - desired actions - conditions of satisfaction - timeframe. We do that by applying SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-bound) objectives. Performer responds to the request by accepting, declining, making a counteroffer or committing to commit later. Once both agree on the commitment, then the Performer acts to fulfill the commitment. Many things can happen here, like Performer making new requests to others, deciding to walk away from commitment, or the request may become obsolete (or canceled by Requestor). The next step is to check if the Requestor is satisfied with the outcome or not. Most of the time, these things come naturally, but as we’re learning to delegate — and delegate effectively — the Cycle of Promise can help guide us with the essential conversations that need to happen to get the good work done. \---> DRAWING OF CYCLE OF PROMISE <--- All of us are participating in such circles every day in all walks of life. Everyone is both a Requestor and a Performer, and often the circle’s motion turns around. A Performer turns into a Requestor, then back into a Performer, and so forth. It’s important to understand the conversations and agreements to have so we can be successful. In highly functioning teams working together for a long time, things often happen naturally. When something isn’t working right, looking in the Cycle of Promise might help spin things in the proper direction. Learning to delegate will take time. It is your duty as a manager to delegate whatever can be delegated. And then learn to do it effectively, and after that learn to tailor it to the way your delegates perform at their best. Imagine that you’re a conductor. Your role is to set the proper pace for magic to happen. If you don’t trust the trumpet guy, you can’t go and blow that trumpet instead of him. If you walk off that podium, the concert falls apart. You can either orchestrate trumpet-less music or find a new trumpeter. Once you master your delegation, you become the opposite of a micro-manager. A macro-manager. This means you have time to plan ahead instead of dealing with fires. ### [Pre-order this book on Amazon](https://amzn.to/3tCYerN?ref=peterkos.org): [![](//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B08TVSXZLV&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=blackbird2020-20&language=en_US)](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08TVSXZLV?&linkCode=li3&tag=blackbird2020-20&linkId=d5409631ad7c2fa9b4a6128b55c7bf65&language=en%5FUS&ref%5F=as%5Fli%5Fss%5Fil&ref=peterkos.org)![](https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=blackbird2020-20&language=en_US&l=li3&o=1&a=B08TVSXZLV) ## Follow the *Writing in public* progress: [#ChallengeAcceptedFrom impostor to leader: becoming the boss you’d like to work for. A handbook for helping people navigate their ways from the first-time manager to a leader.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ee/81/ee81f2ce-30b7-4307-b95a-f9f913343679/content/images/2021/01/ChallengeAccepted-2.jpg)Peter Kos![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ee/81/ee81f2ce-30b7-4307-b95a-f9f913343679/content/images/2021/01/titleonly_ChallengeAccepted-3.jpg)](https://www.peterkos.org/tag/challengeaccepted/)