Dear Katie: I'm struggling to delegate, can you help?
Delegation isn’t ditching work—It’s Developing Talent. Steal this free Delegation Menu to make your management & delegation life easier.
Delegation is a hot topic, yet many struggle to know how to do it well. That’s today’s manager-submitted challenge.
Today you’ll walk away with an updated perspective AND a free, handy tool.
Submit your own manager question/challenge to katie@enduranceboss.com.
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Let’s dive in…
The Challenge
I’ve been a manager for over a year now and I’m finding myself struggling with delegation. I know I should delegate and I struggle because I feel bad, my people are already busy, AND I don’t want my people thinking I’m too good for the work.
Do you have any suggestions to help me delegate better?
Yes, yes, I do!
Mindset
As with everything, I need to start with how we’re thinking about it.
If your perspective is that delegation is simply distributing work that you don’t want to do, yes, you’ll never master the art of delegation.
Your starting place is to recognize a perspective that serves you better.
Here’s the perspective that helps me:
The more work I hold onto, the more I’m limiting the growth and opportunities of my people.
With an updated perspective, you’re ready to get tactical.
Delegation Menu
Let me introduce you to the Delegation Menu. A tool that, when used on an ongoing basis, speeds up the quality and quantity of your delegation.
Here’s what it looks like (don’t worry, I’ve linked it below):
Here’s how to use it…
Step 1: Map Out Your Work
Reflect on everything that you do.
And then put your work into these 3 categories:
Work only I can do
Work I do because it’s “fastest” that way
Work ready to be delegated
This alone is eye-opening for most managers and leaders.
Most of us are doing work we don’t need to, and by way of that, most of us are robbing our people of growth opportunities.
Step 2: Evaluate the ROI on Your Time
You’ll notice a handy little checkbox next to each task.
This is to help build awareness of the value of our time and how we’re using it.
In my experience, some of the things that only I could do, also happened to be low ROI. We won’t maximize our impact as managers and leaders if our non-renewable resource (time) is spent in low impact areas.
Step 3: Map Out Your People
The second tab of the Delegation Menu doc looks like this:
Your task is this:
Add each team member to the table.
And then identify 3 elements of their work:
Work they’re hungry to grow into (and/or get exposure to)
Work that brings them energy
Work that drains their energy
It’s fair that you might not know these answers. Perfect! What a fantastic topic for your next 1:1. It might sound like this:
“Kicking off this new quarter, I want to more consciously align work, whenever possible, to what energizes each of us. Thinking about what was on your plate last quarter, what elements of your work really lit you up?
[Listen to their answer - you are peeling back the layers of the onion, don’t take the response at face value]
Awesome, now what within that was particularly energizing?
[Listen to their answer - is there another layer to peel back? If so, keep peeling until you get to the root skill/behavior.]
And if you had the opportunity to increase your energizing work by 10%, what might that look like?”
Then take the same tactic to uncover what elements of their work they find to be draining. Again, don’t take the face value answer, keep peeling ‘til you get to the core.
And finally, have them vocalize the skills, tactics, behaviors, and people they’re hungry to learn, grow, and benefit from in coming months.
Step 4: Align Your People And Your Work
With greater insights into work preferences for your people, now revisit your own work.
Who can you slot in and where?
What are you seeing differently about your opportunities for delegation?
Step 5: Make a Plan
Loop back to your people with what you’ve identified as opportunities for growth and energizing work for them.
It’s unlikely you’ll offload your identified tasks/work immediately.
The point of this is to view your work and your people with greater intention. It’s then that you can make a plan and assign timelines.
In some cases, it might be a multi-month process of ramping them up into something new. In others, it will be an easy hand off in the coming days/weeks.
Common Concerns
“But Katie, my people don’t have the bandwidth, which is why I’m taking these things on.”
Two quick responses:
Revisit priorities & commitments
Remember the speed of energizing work
While overly tight bandwidth issues commonly spark calls for more headcount and resources, the better place to start is revisiting Clarity.
Are priorities clear and attainable?
Are our priorities outpacing our capacity?
I’d encourage taking a hard look at what the team is committed to as it’s possible they are over-extended and something needs to be moved to the back burner. You’ll likely need to manage up to your leader to make a priority realignment recommendation.
Secondly, how quickly can you complete something that’s energizing? How long does it take you to do something that’s draining?
Exactly.
When you’re hesitating on delegating something that would be something additional on someone’s place, AND it happens to be energizing work for them, just remember how quickly we tend to complete things we’re into.
“But Katie, what if what I should delegate isn’t energizing to anyone?”
It’s easy to assume that something that is draining for you is draining to others.
I hate data and reporting. Others LOVE it.
I hate dealing with admin permissions and settings. Others find satisfaction in task completion.
So my message here is to watch your assumptions. That’s why we need to be asking folks, not just assuming.
My second suggestion is to then evaluate the extent to which the task would be exposure that would be valuable and aligned to how and where your people want to develop.
Finally, yes, there are elements of all of our work that are not our favorite. Can you find a way to make the boring less boring?
Delegation Menu Template
I’ve created this easy template for you to be able to manage with more intentional delegation.
To Edit, go to File > Make a Copy, and you’ll be off to the races!
TL;DR: What You Learned
If delegation has been a nut you haven’t cracked, it’s time for a mindset shift. Delegation isn’t just about getting things off your plate—it’s about creating space for your team to grow and thrive.
In this article, you learned:
A new perspective: Holding onto work may be limiting your team’s growth.
A practical tool: The Delegation Menu helps you map your work, assess ROI, and align it with your team’s strengths and development goals.
5 clear steps: From assessing your own workload to matching tasks with team members and making a thoughtful delegation plan.
How to tackle common concerns: Like bandwidth issues or the belief that no one wants the work you’re offloading.
Use the Delegation Menu to delegate with more intention, clarity, and confidence—a clear recipe for success for every manager.