Exchange of Realities

Yesterday, inspiration. Today, delegation.

Of the three types of leadership, delegation requires the most leaderly skill in order to perpetuate itself. An inspiration-leader will be followed because he is admired, a communication-leader because he understands, but the delegation-leader has to know things. What her goal is. What sorts of obstacles are in the way. What she knows, what she needs to know, and how she can learn what she needs to know. Who she has working for her—their strengths, their weaknesses, and how she can use both to help her with the goals, the obstacles, and the information. In sum, it’s knowing how to give orders, what orders to give, who to give them to, and what they’re supposed to accomplish. Needless to say, this kind of work isn’t easy.

Delegation-leadership doesn’t “just happen” as often as inspiration-leadership does, but when it does it tends to stick. Usually, if it’s “just happening”, there’s a desperate situation with a small cluster of individuals, and someone steps forward and starts identifying problems, solutions and who can handle what (additional resistance is optional, but quite common). But even these situations require some sort of setup—how does the putative leader know enough about the situation and those around her to step in? Somehow isn’t going to cut it. A delegation-leader should be trained, one way or another—at an academy, by a parent, by reading a lot, by being a very good people-watcher, combinations of the above. And there needs to be some way she could have figured out enough of the skills of the people around her for her ability to assign them to positions to seem realistic. (Or she just needs to be focusing more on what needs to be done than who needs to do it. Just watch out for suspension of disbelief issues.)

Along with her knowledge of her brand of leadership and of her situation and subordinates, a delegation leader will often possess the following qualities: a way to ensure that the people under her follow instructions, a keen memory for detail, the ability to clearly communicate her desires, a knack for handling stress and/or multiple inputs, and at least some understanding of how to prioritize. All of these are useful if not essential for doing her job. She does not, however, need to be the best at anything, let alone everything. That’s what the people she’s working with are for. Knowing her own strengths and weaknesses is important as well; how else is she going to figure out what—if anything—it would make sense for her to do herself?

And where would a character like this be without the numerous characterization questions she begs? Where did she learn to do this? How does she get people to listen? How does she see her subordinates? Does she react differently to and with the ones she knows personally? Does her knowledge of her reactions influence whether she allows herself to know them personally? How does she handle situations where there is no right person for the job? Does she take personal responsibility for the fruits of her instructions, or does she distance herself? How confident is she in her own abilities? What does she do about her weaknesses?

Written well, leaders by delegation are extremely good for getting respect from their audiences. Try it sometime.