领导艺术：分权失败5宗罪

    随着我们在一个组织内部获得提拔，我们看待事物的视角也开始发生变化，有时甚至会让你自己觉得不自在。大多数人进入一个组织之后首先承担的是某个技术领域的角色，而且他们基本上确实能够根据自己的能力贡献出组织所需要的成果。

    在我的职业生涯早年，我曾经是一名公关专员，擅长拓展媒体关系、撰写新闻通稿、组织活动和新闻发布会等工作。当然，这些工作也需要你具备与别人合作的技能，但当时我并用不为别人的表现负责。不过，随着我的技能扩展到咨询和销售等领域，我开始在公司里获得提拔，最终当上了公司的总经理。

    这时候，我遭遇了职业的“撞墙期”。突然间，我发现我遇到了似乎力所不逮的问题。当时我真的不知道如何“管理”别人，如何把职责有效地“委派”给其他人。那么，我是怎样做的？我把大多数职责包揽在自己身上，继续亲历亲为，从事需要我的专业技能的工作，只是偶尔把一些“任务”委派给别人。不用说，当时我作为一位经理吃了不少苦头，后来才在这些苦头中领悟到（就像当时我的导师对我说的那样）：“你得找到新的方法来体现自己的重要性。”

    所谓“体现自身重要性的新方法”就是当好领导、当好指挥者、当好委派者的艺术。也就是说，你要开发别人的潜能，而不是自己去充当一名技术专家；通过其他人开展工作，而不是把所有工作都包揽在自己身上。一名交响乐指挥家不可能一个人演奏所有乐器，但是很多新走马上任的经理人都在犯这个错误，而这并不是一个非常有效的方式。

    许多新任的经理人没有充分发挥出他们自己的潜能，因为他们不能有效地给下属委派工作，而且他们也不明白委派工作的意义。委派工作对于领导者来说极为重要，它甚至成了很多有理想、有抱负的经理人的“阿喀琉斯之踵”，可能成就、也可能毁掉一个经理人的事业。下面让我们看看很多经理人没能有效委派工作的五大主要原因。

    1.第一个坏消息：委派者的主要角色是“开发”别人。这是一个大多数经理人并不了解的基本事实……或者他们根本也不想了解。因为“开发”别人并不属于让这些经理人获得提拔的技能之一。

    许多经理人觉得开发别人、帮助别人成长并且取得成绩并不在自身能力的“安全地带”里，因此，他们常常会抵触这个角色。但事实上，向下属委派工作，给予经常性的指导，目的是为了把下属培养成像自己一样强、甚至超过自己的人。而开发别人的好处则是，你开发出来的人才可以取代你的职位，这样你自己才能被提拔到更高的职位上。因此，开发别人的技能以及委派职责的能力为我们提供了一个不断上升的渠道。另外，你给别人委派职责，并不是给别人带去了“负担”，而是在给他们一个成长的机会。

    2.不是“委派”而是“甩派”。英语的“委派”一词来自拉丁文单词“delegare”，原意是“松绑”。所以从字面上看，“委派”就是要让你从大量职责中“松绑”，把它们派给别人。但是许多经理人似乎认为，委派就是简单地把责任“甩”给另一个人，自己当甩手掌柜。这对于一个经理人来说是最没有技术含量的事，这样做就像留下了一个定时炸弹，迟早肯定会在自己面前爆炸。

    高明的委派也包含把某项任务交付给其他人完成，但它也意味着委派者本人在任务的整个过程中都与被委派者保持沟通，而且还要提供反馈、建议、辅导或者任何其他接受委派的人所需要的东西。同时，你还要着眼于确保成功的目的，对被委派人保持主动的关注。它也意味着委派人和被委派人双方都被“绑”在了一个项目的成败上，必须以合作精神来共同努力。你过去是否有“甩派”责任的经历？或者你是否曾经把某件事“甩”给其他人？如果是这样的话，那么你留给其他人的肯定不是一种通力合作的印象。

    3.没有从全局角度进行阐释。如果你上过商学院的话，你可能学过“情境领导理论”。它意味着一个领导要根据下属的专业技能程度把责任委派给他们，然后对于那些经验较欠缺的下属，要更加密切地与他们沟通；对于那些事实证明技能比较纯熟的下属，对他们的督促可以相应放松一些。

    As we move upwards in an organization, our perspective begins to change, sometimes in ways that can feel uncomfortable. Most people begin working in some technical skill area where they can reliably produce desired outcomes based largely on their own performance.

    In my career, I was a public relations practitioner, skilled at media relations, drafting news releases, organizing events and news conferences, etc. Of course that also required the skill of collaborating with others, but I wasn’t responsible for their performance. However, as my mastery of public relations increased into the areas of consulting and selling, I started moving up the ladder until eventually I was the general manager of the organization.

    That’s when I hit the wall! Suddenly, I realized I had been catapulted beyond my area of competence. I really had no idea how to “manage” others and how to “delegate” responsibility effectively to other players. So what did I do? I sucked most of the responsibility up to myself, continuing to work on things that demanded my technical expertise, while occasionally handing out a few “tasks” to others. Needless to say I suffered hugely as a manager until I learned the difficult lesson that (as my coach at the time said to me) “You need to find new ways of being important.”

    The new role, the “new way of being important” that I learned was the role of leader, orchestrator, delegator. The new role of developing others instead of simply being a technical expert.The new role of working through others, not doing all the work myself. Imagine a symphony orchestra conductor trying to play all the instruments. That is what many new managers find themselves trying to do and its not a highly effective approach, to say the least!

    Many new managers fail to achieve their potential because they don’t delegate effectively and they don’t really understand what delegation is all about. Delegating is so critically important that for many aspiring managers it literally becomes their “Achilles Heel”—their fatal weak spot that can make or break their careers. So let’s examine six major reasons that managers fail to delegate effectively.

    1. Bad News First: The Primary Role of a Delegator is to DEVELOP Others. This is a fundamental reality that the majority of managers don’t understand…or perhaps don’t want to understand. Because “developing others” is not one of the technical skills that got them promoted to a manager in the first place.

    Developing others, helping them grow and achieve puts them outside their Comfort Zone and so this role is often actively resisted. Delegation, plus ongoing coaching is the way to develop others to become as strong as, or even stronger than oneself. And the benefit of developing others is that it assures they can take over your job so you can be promoted to an even more senior role. Thus, the skill of developing others, and the skill of delegating responsibility to others provides the pathway to ongoing advancement. And, you are not bringing others a ‘burden’---you are in fact bringing them a growth opportunity.

    2. Instead of Delegating they “Dump-legate.” The word delegate in English comes from the Latin verb delegare, which means to “un-tie.” So literally, to delegate is to “un-tie” yourself from a chunk of responsibility, entrusting it to another instead. But many managers seem to believe that the way to delegate is to simply “dump” the responsibility on another person, wash their hands and walk away. That is the most unskillful thing any manager could do and, like a time bomb, sooner or later it is guaranteed to blow up in their face.

    Skillful delegation does involve entrusting a task to another, and, it also implies that the delegator stays connected to the other person throughout the process, being available for feedback, advice, coaching and whatever assistance is required. It means maintaining an active interest in the person with the goal of ensuring their success. It means that both parties are “tied” to the success of the project, in a committed spirit of partnership. Have you been “dumped” on in the past? Or have you dumped something on others? If so, I bet it didn’t feel like you were in a partnership.

    3. Failing to Explain the Big Picture. If you have been to business school you have probably studied “Situational Leadership.” This means that one learns to entrust responsibility to others based on their degree of expertise, staying more closely connected to those with little experience, and learning to be more relaxed around those with proven expertise.