Spiritually-Based Organizational Leadership TEST

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Thomas Francis University • Course G380 • Segment 2

—Douglas R. Kelley, PhD, CH, CSL

Upon Completion of this Segment, You Will Know:

 Delegation

o Why delegation is important.

o Why Founders don’t delegate.

o How to delegate effectively.

o How to tell if you are a micro-manager.

 Change

o Why people resist change.

o How to help others embrace change.

o Entropy and why change is crucial to growth.

The conventional definition of management is getting work done through people,

but real management is developing people through work.

—Agha Hasan Abedi

eadership involves a number of management duties. In this segment, we will highlight effec-

tive delegation techniques and focus on embracing change. Other management duties include

time management, goal-setting, and finding solutions to problems which are all covered in

Course G130: Life Management Skills –Problems, Goals, and Time and won’t be repeated here. Read

the information and listen to the audios with your team in mind. If your team is very small or if you

don’t have any employees yet, imagine how you will use these techniques once your team expands.

EFFECTIVE DELEGATION

Many areas exist for delegation within any department. It really helps to have competent employ-

ees available to oversee areas that don’t require your direct attention. There are many reasons to

delegate tasks including:

1. You can’t do it all

2. Develops employees

3. Increases productivity

Segment 2: Managing Like a Leader

4. Relieves you to do administrative duties, training, etc.

5. Delegation is a great time-management tool

Some managers find it difficult to delegate effectively, or they may not see an overwhelming

need. Of course, the smaller your group, the less people available for delegation. A common re-

sistance by managers to delegate is that they are worried that others might feel that he or she is

making them do all the work. Ever felt this way? It helps to understand what the term, “manager”

means: “to delegate.” Delegating is one of the primary things you do as the manager of your group.

If you want to have a top-notch group, then you need to have competent employees helping to shoul-

der the load.

Let’s explore some more of the most common reasons managers hesitate to delegate.

• I’m afraid that the job will not get done right. In other words, if you want a job done right,

you have to do it yourself. We’ve all felt this before. Directly related to this one is, “I could

do it quicker and better myself in less time that it would take me to tell them to do it.”

The problem with these lines of thinking is that you are only one person. There is simply

too much to do for you to do it all. Therefore, release your need to control; train your employ-

ees to be competent in necessary areas so you are free to do the things that only you can and

should do.

• The job doesn’t get done at all unless I do it. This is not quite the same as the one above.

Employees sometimes just don’t see the urgency of completing a task on time or correctly.

The solution to this dilemma is to only invite competent and willing people to join your team

(if you are able to hire), and then hold them to accountability in an appropriate manner.

• I don’t have anyone who is trained. This is an easy one. Train them to do the task. Yes it may

take some time and effort on your part, but once done, it relieves you from having to do it.

• My employees have too much on their plates already. This can be a problem especially with

very small groups or tight payrolls. If this is the case, either hire more employees or do the

best you can with what you have to work with until such time that you get more employees.

• I’m afraid that others will outshine me. This is obviously rooted in low self-esteem. Leaders

do not have to know how to do everything; but they need people around them who do. Your

gift as a leader, among other things, is that you are a guide, a clearinghouse of info, a central

hub. You want your people to shine brightly because if they do, you do.

With this in mind, encourage your employees to be authorities in the field. They can achieve

this in a variety of ways, for example, by writing articles, books, speaking, doing radio appear-

ances, etc. Ideally, I want all of my team members to be recognized authorities on a variety

of areas in my field, because if they are, the whole world benefits and it says a lot about my

ability to attract and train quality people.

• I just don’t know how to delegate. Delegation is simply the act of asking someone to do

something. This can be as easy as saying, “Hey John, is there any way I can ask you to do [job]

for me? I’m on a Friday deadline. Can you fit it in?” Notice that I used the word, “ask.” No one

likes to be told what to do, but they don’t mind being asked.

Segment 2: Managing Like a Leader

Another aspect of delegation that you will experience occasionally is “reverse delegation,” which

means to delegate upward. Reverse delegation can take several forms. For example, a team member

asks you a question when they should already know the answer, and now they want a quick answer

without looking it up. Rather than answer their question directly, point them in the right direction so

they can look up the answer for themselves (provided that you’ve already trained them on it or if you

have made the source available). Of course, exceptions exist to this rule such as in urgent situations,

but generally speaking, don’t answer their question if they should already know the answer. This

method is a coaching opportunity that encourages growth in your people, plus they will usually re-

member the answer if they look it up themselves.

Be on the lookout for reverse delegation and don’t let it continue.

How to Delegate

As stated above, delegation is simply the act of asking (not telling) someone to do something.

However, several other aspects are necessary for effective delegation.

 Determine outcomes and establish boundaries. Be clear in your mind what you want done

and effectively communicate that to the employee. Rather than simply telling an employee to

do a task, it helps to think and speak in terms of outcomes. Effectively communicate to em-

ployees what the end picture, or outcome, will look like so they will know exactly what you

are looking for. Don’t assume that the obvious is obvious. By doing such, you will have estab-

lished specific boundaries within which the employee can work. Be careful not to make these

boundaries unnecessarily narrow.

 Tell them why the task is important. But even more crucial, make sure they understand and

buy into why the task is important. Remember, people only do what they see a benefit in

doing. If an employee really sees no benefit, it is going to make getting things done much

harder for you.

 Give them the tools, time, equipment, training, resources, and/or authority to get the job

done. Make sure they have what they need to do an outstanding job.

 Give them a deadline. If you don’t give employees a deadline, it will be extremely easy for

them to procrastinate. And by the way, if you give a person two weeks to do a job, he or she

will usually take two weeks to do it. By the same token, if you give them one week, it will take

him or her one week to do it. In other words, people usually procrastinate and will use what-

ever allotted time you give them to get a job done.

 Follow up as appropriate. This is especially important if you have a new employee that you

are training or coaching, or if this is the first time the employee is performing the specific

task. In such a case, you should ask the employee to call you at some appropriate point along

the way with a status report so you know how it’s going. A management principle states, “In-

spect what you expect.” However, you must use this principle sparingly and only when you

have solid reason for doubt, otherwise you may unwittingly give the impression that you don’t

trust or have confidence in your people.

Once you’ve done all of the above, there is one last crucial thing you need to do: Get out of their

way and let them do it!

Segment 2: Managing Like a Leader

Don’t be a micro-manager! Nobody likes a manager who insists on having his or her fingers in every

pie. Train your people to do the job and let them do it.

So how do you know if you are being a micro-manager? Here’s how: There is only one time when

you should tell your people how to do a job and that is when you are training or coaching them. If

you routinely tell your people how to do a job even after you have trained them, then you are micro-

managing them. Stop it! Of course, there may be times when you may have to retrain or coach certain

individuals and this is fine. But as a rule, tell them what you want done, and not how to do it.

Segment 2 Supplemental Audio: Delegation

NOTE: Before proceeding to the next section, please listen to the audio above on

the Course Page for a supplemental discussion of this section. This audio is part of

the course.

HOW TO HELP YOUR TEAM TO EMBRACE CHANGE

One of the biggest challenges facing managers in any venue is the human trait of resisting change.

Why do so many people resist change?

This is a good question when you consider that most of our lives include a lot of change. Whenever

a question such as this comes up, I like to approach it from a fresh standpoint and get to the bottom

of what it is really about. I keep asking “Why?” until I can’t ask it anymore—in effect “peeling the

onion layers away” until I get to the core.

Many reasons exist as to why so many people resist change. Among those reasons are comfort

zones. We generally like the things we feel comfortable with simply because we’ve become accus-

tomed to them. To change requires effort, and we generally don’t want to expend effort to change

things with which we are comfortable. This is the human trait of seeking the path of least resistance.

But we can go beyond comfort zones in our efforts to discover the answer to why people resist

change. The next stop is fear, and more precisely, fear of the unknown. Most of our fears are irra-

tional in nature and are based on our “real,” not real “real” (whatever that is ). Zig Ziglar described

F.E.A.R. as “False Evidence Appearing Real.” While some fears are legitimate, most of our fears are

not based on real evidence, but on false evidence.

So why do we find fear of the unknown so prevalent in human nature? As we continue to “peel the

onion layers away,” we find “loss of control” at the core. It all boils down to this: we resist change

because we ultimately fear losing control. A powerful and driving trait of human nature is the “need

to control” and people tend to resist change because they are afraid they won’t know what to do, or

won’t be able to do what they need to do when things change.

Think of a time when your company made significant changes that were beyond your control, but

didn’t inform you until after the fact. When this happened, you likely said or thought, “Why couldn’t

they have just told me about it before they made these changes?” Many people think or say this when

changes occur.

But from a logical standpoint, the foregoing mindset makes no sense. When upper management

makes changes beyond our control and informs us about it before hand, what do we often do? We

Segment 2: Managing Like a Leader

gripe; we complain; we adapt, and we move on. But what happens when they make the changes but

don’t inform us before hand? We gripe; we complain; we adapt, and we move on. People do the same

thing in either scenario. There is no difference, logically speaking.

But as it turns out, we humans are not solely logical beings. We are also emotional, and herein

lies a lesson to keep in mind when helping your team to deal more effectively with change:

People are likely to accept change more if they have a part in it, or if they are informed

about it before hand—even when the change is beyond their control.

When we are informed about changes beforehand (even undesirable changes), we still feel more

in control than being informed after the fact, even if that control is only an illusion.

Communicate and involve your team in change whenever possible. This is Shared Leadership. For

example, if you are thinking about updating your standards, protocols, and/or shared values, or mak-

ing other changes, get your team involved. Have a brainstorming session to get their input. Do the

same with problem-solving, goal-setting, etc. They still may not initially like the fact that things are

changing, but at least they will be inclined to buy into the changes because they had a part in deciding

those changes. By doing this, you give them as much control as possible, and changes are not as big

a problem when we feel in control.

But how do you inform your team about important changes that you have decided to make or

changes that have already been decided for you? Get them together as you normally would, inform

them about the upcoming changes, and then let them vent. This is working with human nature. Don’t

fight it. Once they have had a chance to vent, now direct them in a positive and proactive manner to

brainstorm the best ways to adapt to the changes with the least amount of headaches. Give them as

much control as possible, and you are likely to get more buy-in than otherwise.

The key to helping people accept change is to give them as much appropriate control as possible.

This said, there will be times when you will have to make a firm decision regardless of what your

team thinks or feels. Sometimes, positive changes will polarize your team into one faction who

agrees, and another faction who doesn’t. In these cases, make sure your decision is reasonable and

relevant and stick to your guns regardless of whether it means losing people or not.

Another aspect of resistance to change is resistance to new ideas. Many long time managers seem

to be resistant to positive changes and remain enslaved to old-school ideas that are not in keeping

with modern times. Change is a must if we are going to remain up-to-date with technology and ahead

of the competition.

My approach to anything is to move inexorably forward. While not being credulous, I am very open

to new ways and new ideas that just might lead to breakthroughs in approaches, efficiencies, and

cost-savings. My attitude is, “I’m moving forward relentlessly while learning, evolving, and changing.

You can join me or not, but either way I’m still moving forward.” You see, I won’t be around forever

(as far as we know), and I don’t have time to get stuck in the same old ways if those ways are not

proficient.

Remember the old adage, “If you always do what you’ve always done, then you’ll always get what

you’ve always got.” And along with this one, let us never forget the definition of insanity, “Doing the

same thing over and over but expecting a different outcome or result.” New results require new

thinking and new approaches.

Segment 2: Managing Like a Leader

If you find that you are hesitant to change, you are unwittingly setting an unhealthy example for

your team. Nothing new and exciting ever happens unless there is change. Entropy plays a big role

here as well. Things are always changing in one direction or another—they’re either growing or dying

(stagnation is slow death). It is up to us as leaders to make sure that we grow and change in positive

ways rather than deteriorating to an entropic state of disorder. Instead of resisting positive change,

embrace it! See it as your ticket to progress in leadership!

Segment 2 Supplemental Audio: Change

NOTE: Before proceeding to the next section, please listen to the audio above on

the Course Page for a supplemental discussion of this section. This audio is part of

the course.