The Problem
You're a new leader, recently promoted to your role. You're trying to navigate the new position, understand how you fit in the organization, and maybe even grapple with having to manage people you were working with up until yesterday. You want to do well, so you try and get some experience in the work areas you're leading so you can better understand them, but it's proving hard to balance everything without burning out.
You ask your senior leaders for help, and you're being told you have the wrong mindset, that the best managers just delegate. But you strongly believe that, in order to lead well, you have to know something about the job.
So you feel like you have to choose - either be a doer, or a leader.
The Real Problem
The advice that's often given to new leaders - having to transition from doing entirely to delegating - is wrong. It assumes you have to choose one or the other.
The real skill isn't just lifting your hands up and abandoning doing anything yourself, it's choosing which work to do and which to delegate. It's possible to stay hands-on and still be able to delegate. This kind of strategic judgement is a learned skill, and it's a critical piece of being a good leader.
Why This Happens
Leadership frameworks often oversimplify concepts for the sake of messaging. They pick one extreme or the other and say "just do that". In reality, like everything, there is a balance. That balance changes as you transition to different roles, but it almost never goes to zero.
There's a cultural narrative that "real managers" sit behind desks and just order people around. That's not true, and to be an effective leader you need to shed yourself of this mentality. Early in your career, it's VERY hard to distinguish between "doing things that matter" and "being busy". Especially as a new manager, you don't yet fully trust that you can learn what you need to know without doing everything yourself at least once.
Also, the psychological shift of being a new manager takes a big toll. That's why most new leaders will cling on to what they're confident in (doing the work yourself) for a sense of comfort. This is absolutely the wrong choice, and will lead to burnout.
What To Do Instead
With every situation you come across, you will have to make a decision on how to approach it. Think of it as having 3 choices:
- Do it yourself - save this for strategic decisions, relationship-building, and spotting problems that only your experience teaches you
- Do it to learn - take this approach for critical work in your discipline (things your team does) so you can understand the real constraints and issues (ideally you do this a limited number of times and you stop at the point where you have developed adequate knowledge and understanding)
- Delegate - this should be something you do frequently, but not always, and should be applied to routine execution, repetitive tasks, and work that doesn't require your decision-making judgement
Making decisions this way ensures your hands-on work isn't time-wasting or "just getting things done", it's actual intelligence gathering that will help you be a better leader. Your ability to delegate will improve when you've actually done the work. This way, your hands-on time is from the perspective of staying current and understanding your team, not failing to delegate.
The difference between a good leader and a mediocre one is understanding which problems require you and which ones don't. A mediocre or bad leader thinks they are the saviour for everything. A great leader knows their team can (and trusts them to) handle at least the routine ones.
What Most People Get Wrong
- Believing that staying hands-on in some capacity means they are unable to delegate
- Thinking you have to choose between "learning the work" and "becoming a leader" - this is a false choice
- Assuming that the busier you are, the more you're avoiding delegation - maybe you're just solving problems that need your attention
- Not recognizing that different roles require different ratios of doing to delegating
- Missing that your drive to understand and grow is actually a STRENGTH in leadership, not a weakness
The Bottom Line
Staying hands-on doesn't disqualify you from leadership - it's exactly what makes you trustworthy to the people you lead. The goal isn't to stop doing entirely, it's to do the right things and build a team that handles the rest. That's strategic leadership.