Successful companies are comprised of visionary leaders at all levels and engaged employees throughout the organization. As a leader, there are many opportunities in your day and week to engage your team in seemingly small ways with powerful results.
If you desire to create a project plan, an agenda, a policy, a job description, a quality checklist, or document a process; as a leader you may be tempted to do it yourself. Afterall, you know the information best, understand the big picture, and can probably do it faster than any team member. And you don’t have to take the time to delegate or hold them accountable.
The process of creating, even creating something like a policy that seems simple, can be energizing as well as provide a reality check. It often makes sense to delegate the creation of a draft document to a member of your team.
Reasons to delegate the draft:
1. The process of creating is empowering, fun and can energize your employees.
2. Asking someone to commit to paper what they believe they understand can be extremely revealing to them and to you regarding what they know and understand.
3. The employee who creates the draft has more buy-in to the product, even after you offer your insight, edits and make changes.
4. You may never take the time to do it yourself, even if you are quicker and more knowledgeable, and therefore it will not get done.
5. It keeps you from getting stuck in the details. You can review and edit the draft with your big picture and visionary perspective, catching opportunities to improve the draft to more precisely make progress towards company goals.
So next time you are about to create something, ask yourself who on your team should be involved, and who will execute on it. Then ask them to draft it first. Be sure to tell them they are creating a draft, so they are not disappointed when you edit it. Then you can add your vision of what your team is capable of accomplishing to the draft. A true team effort!