How to Build Confidence to Delegate will show you 3 main reasons people cannot delegate and how to break the spell and build confidence to do so (in the second half). A lot of people prefer to do everything themselves, no matter how stressful this becomes. Do you know someone like this? Are you this person? Being unable to delegate says more about you, than about the person to whom the delegation is/isn’t made.
filling your life with jobs others can do will block view of the beauties of life
1. Many people don’t have confidence to delegate because they are obsessive compulsive to varying degrees.
They won’t delegate because they think that others won’t do the job exactly like they can. Now, you may not think you’re the obsessive type. After all, you don’t have to turn off the light 23 times before you leave the room. (Sadly, many people are burdened with extremes of this illness). However, your obsession is alive and kicking. You do things in a certain way. You turn the pictures of bottles outward – if you allow anyone else to stack them, they may turn the pictures sideways. This will irk you so much, you won’t be able to stand it. You hang all the washing out yourself because your teenage daughter/son won’t line up all trousers together. You do all the washing-up because your husband won’t dry the dishes inside and out.
Does any of this sound familiar? Why else won’t you let anyone get their hand on ‘your’ work? Why else won’t you ask someone to help you? You haven’t built up the confidence to allow others to do things their way, because even though things will get done, they won’t get done the way you want them to.
We’re all special in our own ways. We’re all important in many different ways, to several different people. However, over the years – if you allow it – life can strip you of what you thought made you special. If you lose your confidence and haven’t been on the journey to regain it, (which we talk about on this blog) you start to pick helplessly at little things to make yourself feel important again. You get to a point where you’ve lost so much of your self confidence, you feel that any little power you had remaining is slipping out of your hands. Therefore, whatever little you have control over, you make important to your entire well-being. Nowadays the way the memos are written is the beginning and the end of life. If the floor is swept from left to right (as opposed – from right to left) it’s more important to you than it used to be. Nagging has become your strong suit. The more control you lose over your life, to more control you seize over tiny little things that would otherwise mean nothing to you.
Does this sound familiar? Can you explain why things have to be done in a certain way? Why is their way wrong and yours right? Could your way be wrong – perhaps? What journey have you taken in your life to make you feel that everyone has to care about the things in the way that you do? Can you accept that your way may be wrong? Have the confidence to see you’re covering up ‘failures’ with stuff you see as super important, and address the real issues.
Natural leaders have to let that trainee loose on their client’s hair. They have to let the junior doctor hold the heart and move it in place inside the injured patient. They have to let their student cut the footage and slice it back together seamlessly. You see, natural leaders trust people to do their very important jobs – jobs they’ve taken years and years to build up a reputation around. Natural leaders are mothers and fathers who allow their kids to climb that monkey frame despite being totally terrified they’ll get hurt. Natural leaders know that if a child never learns how to climb, he’ll keep falling over his feet. They’re the parents who allow their kids to get up and brush themselves off after a fall, and resist the urge to run and pick them up themselves. Natural leaders know that if you don’t allow people to learn how to pick themselves up, they’ll never become strong. Natural leaders have the confidence to delegate because they have such belief in themselves they understand that someone else’s knowledge and abilities will never threaten their own. Natural leaders delegate because they love to nurture people. They have the patience to teach.
How about you? Do you find delegating hard because you don’t have the patience to teach? Do you avoid delegation because your confidence of being able to teach has dwindled? Are you afraid that if you taught someone something they’ll become better at it than you are? Are you scared that they won’t need you any more? Are you blackmailing them with your knowledge so that they’ll always need you, be in your care, in your service? (Without knowing what you’re doing, of course).
Have you kept these things hidden in your life, afraid to delegate while being bogged down with too much work and responsibility? There are ways you can rid yourself of this. The second part of this article will show you how to build confidence to delegate and reveal some tricks you can implement to rid yourself of this burden. You can dig deep for confidence. We all have it in us. We just have to find it.
Really well said Anne. I’ve known people so insecure about their jobs they actually hide information and avoid delegation purposely so that they will be perceived as ‘indispensible.’ And of course trust issues are hot buttons for most of us – they come with lots of different labels, but that’s ultimately what it boils down to. I’m looking forward to your next article on this important subject!
Thanks for your insight, M. It’s true about the trust issue. But one point to note is that half the time our inability to trust says more about us than the other person.
Of course, we can’t trust dishonest people with important things, however, sometimes people give us no reason to distrust them, we just don’t have the confidence within ourselves to trust.
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I have been through that situation during college and I guess my reason for being afraid of delegating was because I was afraid my members would not follow what I said and that they’d think that I am manipulating them, sort of. But it came to a point that I really need to divide the work to all of us and that’s when I erased the thought of being afraid.
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That’s right Gail. A lot of the time the delegation skills have all to do with us, and nothing to do with other people. We feel we can’t trust them to do what it right, but this only (usually) proves that we have issues with trust.
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