I love the quote from Tom Peters, “Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.”

I have thought about this quote often while at Dallas Baptist University. There are a number of questions that I ask myself about producing other leaders:

“How do we create other leaders at DBU?”
“How are we creating a culture of leadership development in our office?”
“How is my office a leader making factory?”

One way that I believe a leader can create other leaders is through delegation of responsibility. For a leader, delegation is essentially asking someone else to complete a task. That may sound strange, but I promise it has everything to do with leadership development. Let me explain:

1) Think about delegation and training as complementary. They go hand and hand.

When I assign a task onto a colleague I have much more in mind than just getting that task accomplished. I consider delegation (or asking someone else to complete a task) a method of training as well. When it comes to delegation, I am thinking about the experience that employee with go through, what skills they will pick up, and the opportunities they will have to learn to improve their professional development.

I am looking to train our team through the tasks or projects we assign. There is a good amount of effort we go through to look at our team, as well as the work we need to complete, when it comes to delegation. We attempt to meet some of our training needs through delegation at DBU.

2) Connect the delegation (task) to the person.

When you start thinking about delegation as not just trying to get the work done, but also as an opportunity to develop your employees, it changes the way you will assign tasks.

Let me give you an example; when I look at large projects or tasks to be completed in our office, I routinely think about our team. A couple of routine questions that I ask them along the way are:

“What do you see yourself doing in 10 years? Why?”
“What do you need to learn to be effective in that role?”
“What tasks or projects would you like to be apart of in this office? Why?”
“What are the tasks or projects that you have enjoyed in this office? Why?”
“What are the tasks or projects that you have not liked doing in this office? Why?”

The reason I ask these questions is because I want to understand further about our team. I think about what professional experiences they have and also what their future career aspirations are. I am searching to learn more about their calling and the purpose that God has for them.

In the end, I am seeking to connect their callings and professional development to the tasks or projects I assign them. I am hoping to make the work relevant, valuable, and practical for them.

My desire is to help others reach their full potential in front of God so that He can use them to their maximum potential. I want our office to be a leader making factory.

For Hayden, who says he wants to learn more about finance and desires be an analyst, I am assigning him the tasks that afford him opportunities to grow this skill set. Plus, we tend to get excellent work done from him.

Not only have I found this to be very effective in their professional development, their future callings, but I have also found that job performance and job satisfaction seem to be higher as well.

3) The value is not in the task, but in the trust.

It is essential to have high trust relationships with those you work with. Having a high performing team, that is making a positive impact on your clients, department, and organization, is all about establishing and maintaining high levels of trust. You cannot work well with someone who you do not trust.

So, what does delegation have to do with trust?

Well, consistent delegation to employees by way of not only completing the work, but also by assigning tasks that enable growth and experience, will help to engender trust.

When it comes delegation, it’s much more than just the work you are trying to accomplish. It’s the imparting of the skills and habits that will transform the behavior, and eventually the character of the person you are delegating to. As a leader, it’s about helping to produce other leaders.

Once your team understands that it is just as much about their development as it is about completing the work, trust will soon follow. Your team will learn you have good interests for them, that you care for them, and they will follow you for it.

Higher performance will also soon follow, and you will have a group of people that will quite literally pour their hearts and efforts out for you and the organization.

4) Discipline produces habits, habits eventually transform into character. Character builds trust.

Trust in your team is also critical to you as a leader. You have to trust your team. You have to confidently know that they are capable, able, and are completing their work.

Have you ever assigned a task and then wondered if it ever got done? Well, that is not trusting your employees.

Through delegating tasks, you can create an environment for building trust. Experience by experience, delegation by delegation, the leader should coach employees to follow through and follow up with assignments. This is especially important with new employees, it is important to help develop a discipline, which will turn into habits, and eventually a character that builds trust.

The long-term value of having an employee you can implicitly trust is much greater than the time you will give in delegating work and training them.

When you do this, you can assign a task and know confidently that the work is completed well. For the leader, this is such a great situation and peace of mind.

By engendering these four suggestions, consistently modeling this behavior, I believe this is one practical way for you as a leader to produce other leaders in your organization.

Give it a shot. You may just see some incredible things happen!