I'll take a side of authority with that delegation
"If you want to do a few small things right, do them yourself. If you want to do great things and make a big impact, learn to delegate." John Maxwell
Delegation is a problem in many organizations. Leaders do not delegate for three reasons - fear, guilt, or laziness. They fear that a subordinate will get something wrong, hurt the organization, or make them look bad. They are too lazy to invest the time training and developing someone so they do it themselves. Or they feel guilty delegating work to an already busy person.
There are exceptions, such as when the risk is too high, a person is truly overwhelmed, or in an emergency, but generally, to not delegate, is to hurt the organization and the person. I coach this often making the case for delegation. To assist the leader, I offer the concept of intent-based instructions. Purpose (why are you asking), Key Tasks (vitally important things which must be accomplished) and End State (what it looks like when successfully completed). I also coach leaders to give authority with their delegation - to empower their people.
If a leader delegated a project to an individual, he or she could give them some authorizations to help them succeed, such as authority to spend up to a certain amount of money on the project or authority (specific to the project) over other people in the group. Leaders must think in terms of what threshold of authority they want to reserve at their level and what they will trust the subordinate with.
Remember, responsibility and ownership stay with you. That is why delegation can be so hard. But do the hard work to get the most out of people. Give them some authority to accomplish the task completely. Think about delegation more holistically. Remember, you delegate to help people grow but also to allow yourself to fulfill the duties of the position you hold. You own the ice cream stand, you don't scoop the ice cream. Give your people authority to please the customer. Extra sprinkles perhaps?
Make it Personal!
Rob
Rob Campbell