Delegate the Thinking, Not Just the Task

I came across this sentence recently:

Delegate the thinking, not just the task.

And it stopped me.

Because that is the whole thing, isn’t it?

We talk a lot about delegation.

We talk about not being the bottleneck.

We talk about developing our teams.

We talk about wanting people to use initiative, solve problems and think for themselves.

But then a team member walks into our office and says:

“Hey, I have a problem.”

And what do we do?

We fix it.

Of course we do.

We are good at fixing things.

That is probably one of the reasons we ended up in leadership in the first place.

Someone gives us a problem and our brain immediately starts working.

Do this.

Call them.

Move that.

Change this.

Talk to Sarah.

Done.

Problem solved.

And it feels productive.

Except we may have just created another problem.

We Have Trained Our Team to Come to Us

Think about what happens next time.

The same team member has another problem.

Where do they go?

Back to you.

And again, you solve it.

Then someone else comes in.

And someone else.

And another Slack message pops up.

And someone wants approval.

And someone wants to know how to deal with an upset client.

And someone wants you to decide whether they should change something on the schedule.

Eventually you find yourself thinking:

Why does nobody make a decision around here without me?

Well...

Maybe because we have trained them not to.

Every time somebody brought us a problem, we gave them the answer.

We taught them that when something gets difficult, the thinking gets handed back to us.

And that is where we become the bottleneck.

There Is a Difference Between Managing and Coaching

There is nothing wrong with managing.

Sometimes people need clear instructions.

Sometimes something is urgent.

Sometimes there is one correct way something needs to be done.

But if all we ever do is tell people what to do, we are managing the behaviour.

We are managing the task.

We are managing the outcome.

We are not necessarily developing the person.

A manager might say:

“Here is the problem. This is what I want you to do.”

The team member does it.

Great.

The task gets completed.

But did they learn how to solve the next problem?

Maybe not.

A coach approaches it differently.

Instead of immediately giving the answer, they ask:

What do you think is happening?

What have you already tried?

What options do you see?

What do you think we should do?

What do you need from me?

Now the person has to think.

That is where the development happens.

Stop Doing All the Thinking for Them

This does not mean abandoning your team.

It does not mean saying:

“Figure it out. Stop bothering me.”

That is not coaching.

Your experience matters.

Your history matters.

You may have dealt with this exact situation five times before.

They might be seeing it for the first time.

So maybe they come to you and say:

“Here is the problem. Here are the three options I see. This is what I think we should do.”

And you listen.

Maybe their answer is exactly what you would have done.

Great.

Tell them to go ahead.

Maybe they come up with something you never thought about.

Even better.

Or maybe they have missed something.

That is okay too.

You can say:

“Sounds good. Have you thought about this?”

Now you have given them a piece of your experience without taking the decision away from them.

That is coaching.

Bring Me the Problem. Bring Me Your Thinking Too.

You have probably heard the phrase:

“Do not bring me problems. Bring me solutions.”

I understand what that is trying to do.

But I think it goes a little too far.

Sometimes people genuinely need help.

Sometimes they are stuck.

Sometimes the situation is outside their experience.

I do not want a team member hiding a problem because they are scared they have not found the perfect solution yet.

Instead, I would rather say:

Bring me the problem. But bring me your thinking too.

Tell me what is happening.

Tell me what you have tried.

Tell me what options you see.

Tell me what you recommend.

Then tell me what you need from me.

Now I am still there to help.

But I am no longer doing 100 percent of the thinking.

You Can Delegate the Work and Still Keep the Entire Mental Load

This is the part we often miss with delegation.

Imagine you used to manage all the inventory in your hospital.

Eventually you decide to delegate it.

Fantastic.

Sarah now manages inventory.

Except Sarah comes to you every time:

“We are running low on this. What should I do?”

“This supplier increased their price. Should I change?”

“We have too much of this product. Can I adjust the order?”

“Can I switch vendors?”

“Should I order more?”

Technically, Sarah owns inventory.

But who is still thinking about inventory?

You are.

You delegated the task.

You did not delegate the thinking.

Real delegation sounds more like:

“Sarah owns inventory. She knows the budget. She knows our standards. She knows what decisions need approval. Within those boundaries, she can make the call.”

Now Sarah actually owns it.

That is very different.

This Is Also About Headspace

We usually talk about delegation as a time problem.

And yes, delegation saves time.

But I actually think the bigger issue is headspace.

You can answer thirty small questions in a day and maybe each one only takes thirty seconds.

That does not sound like much.

But your brain has now been interrupted thirty times.

Thirty times you stopped what you were doing.

Thirty times you switched gears.

Thirty times you became the decision maker.

And then we wonder why we never have time to think about the bigger stuff.

Hiring.

Profitability.

Culture.

Growth.

Developing the leadership team.

Where the business should be in three years.

You cannot spend much time working on the business when your brain is constantly being dragged back into the day to day.

Trust Needs Boundaries

There is another part of this that matters.

You cannot ask your team to think for themselves and then punish them every time they make a decision differently than you would have.

If you want initiative, there has to be room for initiative.

That does not mean there are no boundaries.

There absolutely should be.

This is the outcome we want.

These are the rules.

These things require approval.

These things do not.

This is how much you can spend.

This is when I need to be involved.

And within those boundaries:

I trust you.

People need enough room to think.

Enough room to try.

Enough room to occasionally get something slightly wrong.

Because that is how people develop judgement.

Your Job Is Not to Make Every Good Decision

I think this is where leadership starts to change.

Early on, you might believe your job is to make good decisions.

And it is.

But as your team grows, that cannot remain the job.

Because there is only one of you.

Eventually your job needs to become:

Build people who can make good decisions without you.

That is coaching.

That is delegation.

And that is how you stop being the person everybody needs before anything can move forward.

So the next time somebody walks into your office and says:

“Hey, I have a problem.”

Try not to immediately solve it.

Ask a question.

See what they think.

Ask what they have already tried.

Ask what they would do if you were not there.

Because if your team cannot make decisions without you, delegation has not really happened yet.

You may have handed over the task.

But you are still holding onto the thinking.

And until you let go of that, you are still the bottleneck.