Developing Delegation Skills: A Leadership Reflection
This reflection paper examines one leader's journey to improve delegation as a core leadership competency. The author identifies perfectionism and a tendency toward micromanagement as personal barriers to effective delegation, then describes two structured activities undertaken to address them: reviewing academic and practitioner literature on delegation strategies and engaging a mentor with real-world business leadership experience. Drawing on sources such as Kegan and Lahey (2009) and Barr and Dowding (2019), the paper outlines practical strategies including selecting capable team members, ensuring resource access, and maintaining open communication. The paper concludes with lessons learned, plans for continued improvement, and a personal reflection on how delegation enhanced productivity and reduced burnout.
- Introduction: The Skill of Delegation: Identifying delegation as the target leadership skill
- Activities to Improve Delegation: Overview of two improvement activities undertaken
- Literature on Delegation: Strategies drawn from academic and practitioner sources
- Guidance from a Mentor: Mentorship lessons on trust and task assignment
- Improvement and Lessons Learned: Outcomes and key takeaways from the activities
- Plans to Continue Improving: Future steps to sustain delegation skill growth
- Personal Reflections: Overall reflection on productivity and fulfillment
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What makes this paper effective
- The author grounds the reflection in credible academic and practitioner sources, lending analytical weight to what could otherwise be a purely personal narrative.
- The paper demonstrates honest self-assessment by naming specific personal barriers — perfectionism and micromanagement — rather than speaking in vague generalities.
- Concrete, actionable strategies learned through both literature and mentorship are tied directly back to the author's own behavioral changes, creating a clear cause-and-effect arc.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper effectively integrates source citation into reflective writing. Rather than simply listing what was read, the author synthesizes advice from Barr and Dowding (2019) and Kegan and Lahey (2009) with personal experience, showing how theoretical frameworks translate into practical behavior change. This source-to-application technique is a hallmark of strong reflective academic writing at the undergraduate level.
Structure breakdown
The paper follows a clear reflective cycle: it opens by identifying the target skill and the personal barriers to it, moves into two distinct improvement activities (literature review and mentorship), reports measurable outcomes and lessons learned, then closes with a forward-looking improvement plan and a brief personal reflection. This structure mirrors the Gibbs Reflective Cycle commonly used in professional development writing, making it easy for readers to follow the author's growth narrative.
Introduction: The Skill of Delegation
The skill I sought to improve is the ability to delegate. From the outset, it is worth noting that, as Sostrin (2017) indicates in a Harvard Business Review feature, those who wish to be great leaders must learn the art of delegation. According to the author, this is especially true given that leaders cannot personally attend to all the tasks and responsibilities associated with leadership. In essence, delegation can be understood as the ability to assign authority to other persons for the execution or performance of certain tasks or roles (Hartley and Benington, 2010).
I have always found it difficult to permit other persons to execute certain tasks or to give them authority to act on my behalf. I consider myself a perfectionist. This desire to ensure that various activities are done correctly has consistently kept me from trusting others enough to distribute certain tasks to them. Furthermore, my approach to leadership has been rather hands-on. Even when I permitted others to perform certain tasks on my behalf, I found it difficult to detach from active involvement in the performance of those tasks.
Activities to Improve Delegation
To enhance my ability to delegate effectively, I selected and engaged in two activities: consulting available resources and literature on how to engage in effective delegation of roles and tasks, and reaching out to a mentor to guide me on the principles and practical concepts of delegation. Each of these activities is discussed in greater detail below.
Literature on Delegation
When it came to reviewing available resources and literature on effective delegation, I was primarily interested in identifying the various tips and strategies that could be deployed to become more effective at delegating tasks. I reasoned this was a sound approach because many business leaders, authors, and researchers have previously explored the strategies and methods needed to succeed at delegation. In one such resource, Kegan and Lahey (2009) point out that to delegate responsibilities effectively, leaders must first identify the personal factors that get in the way of delegation. On this front, the authors recommend that leaders ask themselves: What personal habits or behaviors could be stalling my efforts to delegate? Only after identifying those habits and behaviors should one engage in deliberate efforts to ensure they no longer obstruct effective delegation.
In my case, the identified traits were an inclination toward perfectionism and a tendency to micromanage. I addressed these by seeking to communicate more effectively with subordinates, ensuring they were fully aware of the requirements of assigned tasks and responsibilities. When subordinates clearly understand what is expected of them, they are better able to execute tasks without requiring my active involvement. Moreover, when task requirements are properly understood from the outset, there is little room for poor performance.
Another crucial strategy I encountered in the literature is the need to select capable and skilled people for the task at hand (Barr and Dowding, 2019). This helps ensure that productivity is not compromised by delegation. It is also important, according to Barr and Dowding (2019), to ensure that team members have access to all required resources and are sufficiently motivated. Resources in this context may include, but are not limited to, "training, money, supplies, time, a private space, adjusted priorities, or help from others" (Barr and Dowding, 2019, p. 137). In seeking to motivate team members, the authors are emphatic that for delegation to succeed, leaders must avoid setting unachievable goals, must not be excessively demanding, and must remain available for consultation. These are the skills and strategies I have been actively applying in practical scenarios to become more effective at delegation. For broader context on delegation as a management concept, its principles have been widely studied across both public and private sector leadership.
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