Delegation doesn’t necessarily come naturally to everyone. If you had parental influence anything like mine, the mantras were “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well” and “If you want a job done well, do it yourself”.
Yes literally, that’s what I grew up with. I watched my Dad, an amazingly hard working man, achieve so much. Where do you leadership beliefs come from?
With this belief, for many years, I was challenged in leadership roles with delegating and letting go. I struggled to hand over tasks, projects and responsibility.
I’ll also fess up at this point, if you haven’t read previous blogs, I’m also still a control-freak. I LOVE control, so the delegating came even harder back then, because I was a boots-all-in, keep my fingers in the pie, hands on kind of gal!
Which is great to a point, and then a disaster.
Doing it all yourself is totally good for getting stuff done, however….
When we’re not delegating and we’re over-controlling in our tourism businesses, it has a significant impact on our team around us. People will actually stop trying. They lose interest, stop showing initiative, and thinking for themselves – because we’ll always have an answer or want the last say. It’s incredibly demotivating for people.
They might not feel they can live up to high expectations, do it well enough or right, or even contribute, because we shut them down, don’t listen, or even listen and then override their opinions, input and work, by only backing ourselves.
Ever done that? I’m not alone, am I…..?!
Here’s the thing, be mindful of how critical delegation is, not only to balance workload and ensure priorities are getting done, it’s very important for building capability across the tourism team.
Otherwise they will stop trying, caring and eventually… potentially, give up and leave.
Yes leave, this is big for retention of your team members.
How are your delegating skills going?
What’s on your plate right now that you could invite some contribution on?
Handover to someone?
Who is making the decisions?
Could you provide some more ‘teaching/training” to support the delegation process?
Do you need to follow-up on a recent meeting and deliverables? Not to control, simply to check in and ask “How are you tracking with X? Need a hand? Any questions? And say thank you. Be grateful, validate, acknowledge and recognise the input, effort and contribution of your team members. It goes a long way.
Big love and here’s to continuously building the delegating muscle 😉
Genevieve
P.S Whenever you’re ready… here are 4 ways I can help you develop and work on your business leadership capabilities:
- Grab a free copy of Smash Indecision and Overwhelm, 4 Steps for Better Business Leadership E-book
It’s the road map to overcoming doubt and indecision, how to deal with “overwhelm” to improve your business leadership capabilities. — Click Here
- Join the Tourism Business Leader’s Facebook group and connect with like-minded leaders focused on building highly effective teams
It’s our Facebook community where smart leaders get to learn more about creativity, leadership, and performance for tourism business success. —Click Here
- Join our Tourism Pro-Team Program
Helping tourism business leaders develop their skills to improve engagement, accountability, and performance of the team. If you’d like to work with me so you can stop being reactive, have the difficult conversations, and drive performance to get the results you want and know the business need then…message PRO to me here and I’ll get you all the details.
- Let’s get the Whole Team Together
Would you like a different perspective and someone else at the front of the room or on zoom/teams to lead regular and consistent team building, accountability, and engaging learning experiences, that drive results and outcomes for individuals, teams, and the business? If you feel a little challenged with everything going on, maybe sounding like a cracked recorded saying things repeatedly, or actually not 100% how to motivate and inspire the team, given the current nature of business, it may be useful for us to chat. Message TEAM to me here… and tell me a little about the business, your team, and what you’d like to work on together.
