As I have mentioned before, I have employed all these self-limiting behaviors at one time or another, but at this particular stage in my life, controlling behavior seems to be the one I struggle with the most. My false belief is that when I’m in charge and in control—frequently means I’m also doing all the work—is that everything gets done the way I want it done. The false assumption is that I will not fail. I’m doing the work and I’m doing it right. Wrong. Note the hint of perfectionism in this dysfunctional thinking. While I discuss the self-limiting behaviors as separate entities, the reality is that there is a lot of overlap between them.

There is a high price for being in control of everything and it’s called burnout. You can’t do everything. If you don’t learn to delegate tasks, you are on the road to a slow sizzle. A recent survey found that while percentages vary among industries, almost 50% of the entry level workforce is comprised of women. Hence, a relatively equal number of men and women start careers. Yet as you progress up the corporate ladder, that gender balance starts to become skewed. Recent stats show that only 10% of CEOs are female. While this number is an improvement, it still lags behind the 90% of all CEOs who are male. There are many reasons for the lack of women in top leadership positions, but if we don’t learn to delegate household tasks, childcare tasks, and job tasks, we are likely to be exhausted, sick, and burned out. No wonder we lack the stamina to make it to the top.

Learning to delegate is easier said than done. I was fortunate to have a woman friend whose superpower was delegating, and I learned from her. When necessary, she took time to teach the other person how to do the job. She communicated clear expectations, such as regular checkin times and ownership over assignments. But the hardest thing about delegating for me is that it requires me to be comfortable with someone doing things differently than the way I would. Ouch. I have had to learn there are other ways, besides my way, that work.

The only way to learn to delegate is to practice and start small. Full disclosure—letting go is hard and scary. After grading over 2,500 resilience papers, it became obvious that I needed help and needed to learn to delegate this task to the teaching assistants. I was, of course, convinced that no one grades better than I do which is an embarrassing example of my inflated ego. Still skeptical that I could trust this important task to others (implied—less qualified than me), I cautiously relinquished the grading of student resilience papers to teaching assistants. Once again, my over-inflated ego reared its ugly head. Imagine my surprise, and relief, when I realized the students were learning resilience regardless of who did the grading. The papers weren’t graded exactly the way I would have graded them. I wish the teaching assistants made more comments, and I wish they required more elaboration from the students. But it worked. Students still learned resilience and I could spend my time doing other things, once I learned to delegate this task to someone else.

Likewise, when overwhelmed with child-rearing, work, and managing the household, I learned to delegate grocery shopping to my husband. (Side note: In the early history of humankind, men were the hunters. They would leave the cave, hunt for food, and bring back their catch for the woman to prepare. I like to think that delegating grocery shopping helps satisfy my husband’s primeval instinct for hunting. Hehe.) Notice I used the word “learned” when I talk about delegating. Does he do grocery shopping the way I would? No. Buy exactly the things I would buy? No. Is his grocery shopping perfect? No. And sometimes, I confess, I lament to myself about how I do it better. But do I really want to pay the physical, psychological, and emotional price to control everything? The answer is no. Delegating to others is good enough, and that frees me up to do other things.

Reframe Control

The way I like to reframe letting go of control (can you tell how much I struggle with this), is that by delegating a task to others, I allow them to learn a new skill and to shine in their accomplishments.

Thinking positively about delegating and seeing it as an opportunity to promote others while I step into the background makes letting go a little easier. And honestly, I have yet to regret delegating tasks. My goal is to keep practicing. I wonder how much burn-out, exhaustion, illness, and overwhelm could be eliminated or at least reduced if we were better at letting go of control and delegating more.

Is letting go easy? No way. I must constantly practice and remind myself I’m creating opportunities for others and taking care of myself. A colleague and I are currently in the midst of developing a leadership Institute. We are trying to practice delegating. Instead of both of us attending events, one of us will go to the event which frees the other to do something else. Is it hard? Yes. We are both go-getters and doers. But we frequently remind each other that only one of us needs to make an appearance and the freedom of delegating keeps us both motivated, enthusiastic, and mentally healthy.

What did you have time to do as a result of delegating a task to someone else? I hope it was fun and rewarding.