The Lost Art of Delegating: How to enable others to act on your behalf to get more done than you ever could on your own.

By Edward J. Murphy

This book is about DELEGATING!

Delegating is your ability to enable others to act on your behalf to get more done better than you could on your own.

Delegating is also one of these ten core competencies of your effectiveness and success in business.

Followership, Delegating, Planning, Organizing, Communicating, Problem-Solving, Awareness, Training, Motivating, and Character Building.

Delegation empowers followers to make decisions. It drives decision-making authority down to the lowest possible level.

However, if done right, the delegation isn’t abdication because the delegator is still responsible and accountable for the outcome of the assignment.

The delegator can never assign or transfer their responsibility or accountability for their assignment.

In the business world, delegation grants or transfers authority from a delegator to a follower to accomplish an assignment.

However, the delegator is still responsible and accountable for the follower’s acts or omissions in carrying out the purpose of the assignment.

Effective people also know that they can never consistently produce excellent results without developing, nurturing, and enabling team members to act on their behalf.

This empowers followers to act independently with proper resources to accomplish an assignment.

The delegator doesn’t have to be a boss or someone with authority.

Delegators are often peers, friends, or even spouses and it saves money, and time, motivates team members, and creates more effective teams.

Delegating an assignment isn’t abdication because the asker is still responsible and accountable for the end result.

5% of delegating is asking someone to perform a task by a certain time. The other 95% is about following up to ensure it gets done.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edward J. Murphy
• Release date: May 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311253200

Edward J. Murphy

Ed Murphy considers himself lucky. From age 7, he knew what he wanted to be when he grew up. He wanted to be a Soldier. In 1964, four days after graduating from High School, he joined the US Army and found himself in Basic Training and Advanced Infantry Training at Fort Dix, New Jersey.A year later, Ed became a Cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point. In 1970, he graduated as a 2d Lieutenant headed to Airborne and Ranger School, then off to Viet Nam for a year.In 1978, Ed returned to West Point to teach Military Science and earned a Master’s Degree from Long Island University in night school. His greatest achievement during his time in the military was helping 1400 soldiers begin their college education during his last two years in West Germany as a Battalion Commander. He wanted to give his soldiers something of real value - something that no one could ever take away. After 23 years as a US Army Officer, from Viet Nam to Desert Storm, he retired in 1993.Ed then decided, with a little help from Anthony Robbins, that his second career would be as an Executive Coach. For the next 21 years, he worked for four of the largest consulting, outplacement and e-cruiting companies in America from Seattle, San Diego, to Kansas City.In 2012, Ed retired a second time and decided to document everything he learned from those he admired and willingly followed over his 50+ years in both the US Military as an Army Officer and Corporate America as an Executive Coach.Since many of them aren’t alive today to tell their stories, he wanted to pay tribute to them before their lessons were lost forever. Thanks to them, he’s collected thousands of small and simple things (tactics, techniques, and tools) that have helped and will continue to help future generations to maximize their true career potential by becoming more effective at work and in life.In 2014, Ed created TheCAREERMaker.com, a site dedicated to providing the best-in-class wisdom, knowledge, and advice on how to maximize your true career potential by teaching three simple things; how to become absolutely essential and irreplaceable to any leader, how to become more effective tomorrow than you are today, and how to find and build the career you were meant to have. His greatest joy comes from helping others avoid or overcome the problems he’s faced during his lifetime.In 2016, with the help of two partners and co-authors Lee O. Lacy and Jason Bowne, he finally completed The Effectiveness Guide, which teaches how to become more effective tomorrow than you are today by consistently producing excellent results; treating others with dignity, respect, and kindness; and helping others to do the same.Today, Ed considers himself fortunate to get to live in Phoenix, AZ, where he enjoys writing, eating sushi, genealogy, and watching movies with family, friends, and his best friend and wife, Diana.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

"Followership is a discipline of supporting

leaders and helping them to lead well."

- Reverend Paul Beedle

This book is about DELEGATING, which you’ll learn about in the next chapter.

However, before continuing, it’s important to understand that this book is just one of a ten volume set of books that constitute a revolutionary new program called LEADERSHIP MADE SIMPLE.

It’s a real-world, Leader Training Program designed to help you achieve the effectiveness and success you deserve by mastering these ten core competencies:

Followership, Delegating, Planning, Organizing, Communicating,

Problem-Solving, Awareness, Training, Motivating,

and Character-Building.

I’m Ed Murphy, the founder of The Effectiveness Institute and the creator of LEADERSHIP MADE SIMPLE. 

This training is for you regardless of your occupation,

position, or level of authority.

My goal is to help you rise above the crowd, to be the best at what you do, and to stand out, rather than just fit in.

For my first career, after graduating from West Point, I served 24 years as a US Army Officer, during two wars, Vietnam, and Desert Storm, traveling all over the world. 

After the military, I spent the next 20+ years as an Executive Coach in Corporate America working with hundreds of business executives, small business owners, and teams, in Seattle, San Diego, Kansas City, and Phoenix.

During my career, I was always searching for why some people are more effective and successful than others. 

As a result, I discovered that the most effective people were able to achieve extraordinary success by:

Consistently producing excellent results.

Adding greater value to all those who helped them produce their results- especially their boss.

Treating all those with whom they worked with respect and kindness, regardless of how they were treated.

Currently, I’m the author of over 30 books and create online video training courses on each of the ten core competencies.

I created this special program from all the best practices I’ve learned from the best and brightest people with whom I served over my 77 years on the planet.

What makes LEADERSHIP MADE SIMPLE so unique is that it provides these three things you won’t find anywhere in academia or corporate America:

First, it gives you the most actionable best practices needed to consistently produce excellent results. 

Second, it teaches the most critical success skills used by the most effective people in their field, which you were never taught in school.

Third, it provides step-by-step instructions for each core competency explaining what should be done, and how to do it, and provides the tools needed to make it happen.

These are all things you can easily learn today and use tomorrow.

I know that as you learn, use, and share what you’ll learn here, you’ll be adding greater value to your boss and team - making you irreplaceable.

Remember, we’re all a work in progress. So, no matter how good you think you are, you can always be better.

Join us and discover why our readers come away saying, "I wish I knew this stuff years ago."

This program is my legacy: to make a difference in some meaningful way to those I must leave behind.

Enjoy the book!

Also, if you feel this information could help someone else, please let them know. If it turns out to make a difference in their life, they’ll be forever grateful to you, as will I.

To your SUCCESS!

Sig 2

Founder of The Effectiveness Institute.

The LEADERSHIP MADE SIMPLE Series of books is available only from Smashwords.com.

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Stop wishing you were better and do something about it today.

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1

THE ART OF

DELEGATING

"Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate

authority, and don't interfere as long as the policy

you've decided upon is being carried out."

- Ronald Reagan

This book is about DELEGATING!

Delegating is your ability to enable others to act on your behalf to

get more things done better than you ever could on your own.

Delegating is also one of these ten core competencies of your effectiveness and success in business.

Followership, Delegating, Planning, Organizing, Communicating, Problem-

Solving, Awareness, Training, Motivating, and Character Building.

Delegation empowers followers to make decisions. It drives decision-making authority down to the lowest possible level. However, if done right, the delegation isn’t abdication because the delegator is still responsible and accountable for the outcome of the assignment.

The delegator can never assign or transfer their responsibility

or accountability for their assignment.

In the business world, delegation grants or transfers authority from a delegator to a follower to accomplish an assignment.

However, the delegator is still responsible and accountable for the follower’s acts or omissions in carrying out the purpose of the assignment.

Effective people also know that they can never consistently produce excellent results without developing, nurturing, and enabling team members to act on their behalf. This empowers followers to act independently with proper resources to accomplish an assignment.

The delegator doesn’t have to be a boss

or someone with authority.

Delegators are often peers, friends, or even spouses and it saves money, time, motivates team members, and creates more effective teams.

Delegating an assignment isn’t abdication because the asker is still responsible and accountable for the end result.

5% of delegating is asking someone to perform a task by a certain time.

The other 95% is about following up to ensure it gets done.

The key to effective delegation is to do so gradually.  This gives your direct reports a chance to prove themselves.

Ensure they understand your requirements. And ensure they understand how to follow up and follow through and the other best practices from this book.

Important Notes:

To make this book more useful for, and actionable by, everyone in the workforce, it’s important to point out that I’ll be using the term boss, throughout this book, instead of leader, manager, or employer. 

I do this because,

We all work for a boss, whoever pays us for our work.

Even if you’re self-employed, or a small business owner, your boss is your customer, client, guest, or patient; whoever pays you for your services. 

I’ll also be using the terms member or team member instead of worker, employee, or associate to reinforce the power of teamwork.

So, let’s get to work!

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2

BY BUILDING

TRUST

"Better to trust the man who is frequently in error

than the one who is never in doubt."

- Eric Sevareid

Delegating is all about trust! Trust is the glue that holds everything together for any company. Trust is important in business because it forms the basis of all relationships and interactions.

Trust is the firm belief in the reliability, honesty,

integrity, ability, or strength of someone.

Creating a sense of trust is the most important factor when considering team member performance. Successful businesses are built on relationships, and the foundation of all relationships is trust. Unfortunately, there may be times when some people may not see eye to eye.

However, if members treat each other with respect and kindness and can get their ideas across without feeling belittled or discriminated against, then trust can be built. Without trust, your ability to come to an agreement or build consensus will always be compromised.

What are the benefits of trust?

Increases productivity and improves morale.

Enables members to work more effectively as a team.

Reduces the time needed to discuss key issues and make decisions.

Facilitates cooperation and collaborative problem-solving.

Improves quality results and diminishes costs.

Expands teamwork and sustainability.

Trust is the emotional component of companionship, friendship, love, agreement, relaxation, and comfort.

Why are some bosses reluctant to delegate?

The main phobia bosses have about delegating is losing control. I get it. However, the truth is that you never had control in the first place.

Control over other people is an illusion!

But, influence, through persuasion, is achievable.

The sooner you realize this fact, the quicker you’ll achieve order from chaos and let others do their job. The key to delegating is to do so gradually until you know who can move the work forward and who can’t.

Are there different degrees of trust?

Here's a list showing the different degrees of trust, starting with showing very little trust and ending with showing complete trust:

Bring the facts to me for action (little trust).

Develop alternatives, and I’ll take action based on the facts.

Be prepared to take action, but don’t do anything until I say so.

Tell me what you propose to do and when.

Analyze the situation, take action, and tell me the results.

Just go! Here’s the situation; deal with it! (complete trust).

How is trust built?

Do you know the most important components of building relationships? You shouldn’t be surprised that it’s trust. How much does your boss trust you? How much trust do you have in your team members?

Here are the important components of building trust:

If others sense that you’re AUTHENTIC, you’re much more likely to be trusted.

If others sense that your LOGIC is solid, you’re far more likely to be trusted.

If others sense your EMPATHY is sincere and directed at them, you’re far more likely to be trusted.

When all three are present, you have their trust. But if any one of these three is missing or needs work, trust is in question.

How can