Lesson 82 — Make your yourself redundant

Imagine if your only responsibility was to drive the business forward—to pursue Excellence. What would you do? Where would you start? Perhaps delegate your day to day, develop better leaders and take succession planning seriously.

Make yourself redundant is a radical way to think about succession planning—and delegation.

As a leader, one of your most important tasks is to teach others how to think and ask the right questions, so the world doesn’t stop when you take a day off.

Make it a win-win-win. Delegation will help you focus, help others step up and help the organisation move forward with business continuity.

1. Delegate simple tasks to those in your trusted team.

2. Delegate more difficult tasks—the hard-to-get-your-head-around activity. The stuff that occupies your head and interrupts a good night’s sleep.

3. Delegate all aspects of your job. As confidence builds, allow others to step up to step change.

If you want people to learn, you have to create a culture that allows them to make mistakes and figure it out themselves. Micromanaging defeats the whole purpose.

Be careful though. It’s possible to be too hands off. You can delegate authority, but you can’t delegate responsibility.