Just what is delegation anyway? We have all heard that the goal of any leadership position is to delegate oneself out of a job. That makes sense if you are the delegator; not so much if you are the delegatee.
Look it up and you will see that to delegate is to, “…entrust (a task or responsibility) to another person, typically one who is less senior than oneself.” Delegating responsibility is a way to acknowledge a junior person’s growth, and the senior person’s faith in his or her ability to complete a given task.
I think it is more basic than that. I think it is laziness. As a career delegator, I feel qualified to make that statement, especially since I have no one to delegate to anymore. As a cartoonist, I work alone and have found that you have to do everything yourself if you don’t have someone to complete your less glamorous tasks for you.
It isn’t that I can’t do the chores, it is that I don’t want to. Having lost NJP authority I have no way to force others to do what I don’t care to do, and it is getting harder to dupe people into doing something distasteful.
I guess I could try delegating to my daughter, but she has already won the mind battle and she is only seven.
Click on the image to see what I’m dealing with.
Having others do all your work all the time, though, can degrade a person’s ability to do things like perform real tasks, or actually lead.
Truth be told, I have figured out how to fix a lot of things that used to baffle me. Here is a thought. Maybe I am riding the crest of a new wave of initiative, led by people who do things themselves, without relying on delegation. Maybe we are all about to emerge into an era of self-starters and do-it-yourselfers.
If that is the case, then count me in, cowboy. I am all over that. I am all in.
Unless I can find someone to do it for me. Then all bets are off.
