Written by By the title of this article, you may just want to skip to something else, but please take the time to read how there are plenty of coaches, general managers, athletic directors, and front office staff out there that are holding onto tasks for far too long, which normally results in opportunities missed, games or competitions lost, or other types of failure. If a leader is unwilling to delegate tasks appropriately, it wastes time and energy and detracts what the true focus should be, the athletes and team. Each coach, GM, athletic director, and staff must ask themselves, is holding onto a task really worth it?
Back in the day, as an extremely young head coach, I had plenty of tasks that I could have easily done myself or that I could have completed faster and better than anyone that I could have tasked it to. But what was I wasting by doing this?
Time – Time is an obvious answer, for every task that I complete and did not delegate, I could have been focused on something else, like helping an athlete mentally prepare for an upcoming competition.
Communication – Since I was completing these tasks on my own, I was not communicating with anyone else on what needed to be accomplished, what direction we should be heading, or much else.
Trust – Every task that I did not delegate to an assistant coach proved to them that I did not trust them. Why was I hustling around while others were standing around? It was because I was an ineffective leader and my delegation skills were horrible. I felt that I had to complete every task to be successful while helpful people stood there trying to help that I was ignoring and at the same time I was telling them that I did not trust them.
Learning Opportunities – Because I was not delegating tasks to anyone, I was not providing opportunities for other coaches to learn. Didn’t I want my assistant coaches to learn and be better at their craft? If they learned, wouldn’t our athletes and teams perform better?
High Level View – If I was in the weeds accomplishing all of the tasks that I should have delegated, who was steering the ship? I could not effectively do both at the same time, which in other words meant that I was poorly accomplishing both, if at all. The direction of the organization was not happening at all as I was not focused on being strategic.
Once I realized that not delegating tasks was not working for the organization, teams, athletes, coaches, and staff, I had to look inside and be honest with myself. What I was doing was not only not working, but was adversely impacting everyone else. How could I have messed up so quickly and in my first role as a head coach and at the same time alienate the people that were there to help?
I quickly changed my focus and decided to be a better coach, manager, and leader. I began working on some simple goals to help me delegate tasks. I made a list of what I could delegate, whether it was equipment procurement, facilities coordination, or team meals. I then wrote down who I would delegate each task or group of tasks to. I would then get the coaches and staff that I was delegating to buy off on the tasks and even come up with ideas of other tasks they wanted to take on. I would then set them up for success by having discussions on specific tasks, walking them through the tasks, or training them on how to accomplish the tasks. Lastly, I would always solicit feedback to see what we could do better with one or a group of tasks, what other tasks we needed to add to make athletes, teams, and organization better, and how these tasks could better help the strategic focus of the organization.
Delegation is extremely important and those that are assigned tasks are no less important to the organization’s success than the person delegating those tasks. On a team, we all have important roles, and those that lead teams and organizations need to realize that success will not happen unless delegation happens. So before you think that you will quickly complete a task and not delegate it, please think again.