6 Ways For Church Leaders To Become Effective Delegators

I’ve met many leaders who are in a rut because they do not effectively delegate. They quickly become the bottleneck of their team or organization, because they don’t know how to delegate or they don’t trust their team to own the responsibility.  

Tired leaders are likely not delegating properly, if at all. Effective and energetic leaders have learned the art of delegation.

The definition of delegate is to entrust a task or responsibility to another person. The key word there is trust. If you can’t trust your team, then you might have the wrong people in the wrong seat on the bus. If you do have the right people in the right seats, then you are likely a micromanager and need to read this article.

Here are six questions to help you become an effective delegator and take your team to the next level.

1. Is this something only I can do?

If there is a project or a task that only you can do, than of course it makes sense for you to do it. However, this should be a clue that you either need to develop someone on your team to be able to accomplish this or hire someone who can. If you’re filling your time with only things you can do, than you become the bottleneck of your organization.  

2. Is there someone on my team or in my church that can do this better or quicker than me?

Many people are terrible delegators because they never stop to think if there is someone who can achieve this task more efficiently than themselves. No one wants to look like a failure, and many people view delegating a task as a failure that they can’t do themselves. However, quite the opposite is true. Effective leaders surround themselves with people who can do certain things better or more efficiently than themselves and give them the freedom to own that responsibility. This allows the organization to grow and scale.

If you’re doing something that someone else can easily do that is within your reach, delegate and spend your time on point #1: only the things you can do.

3. Is it more cost and time effective for me to do this or to outsource it?

There’s a point in every organization where it’s more cost and time effective to outsource a project or task than to do it in-house. This is especially true for quickly-growing organizations. Today’s world is overly-saturated, which means people are more specialized than ever.

An example of this is design. If you are wanting a graphic design for your upcoming sermon and don’t have a graphic designer on staff, it’s likely more cost and time effective for you to outsource this project to a company who can produce a high quality graphic design in a short amount of time. This frees you up to focus on the sermon content and not spend hours creating a lower quality graphic design.

4. What is my end goal and does what I’m doing right now help me achieve that end goal?

Have you ever left a work day thinking, “I was busy all day and got a lot done, but I didn’t get anything on my to-do list done." In a world of disrupting email, many of us spend our days responding to emails instead of proactively working on projects.This means you spent your day being reactive instead of proactive. 

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, stop and ask yourself if what you are doing helps you achieve your end goal in your ministry. If it doesn’t, stop doing it completely or delegate to someone else.

What we say no to is just as important As the things we say yes to.

5. Is it scalable for me to do this task or project?

Similar to point #1, effective leaders are constantly thinking about scale. Is it scalable for you to do the things that only you can do? It might be for a time, but long-term, think about who you can develop or hire to help you scale your own responsibilities as you take your team to the next level.

6. Does this project give me energy or drain my energy?

As I think about the influential leaders in my life, they all have one thing in common: they figured out what kind of projects drained their energy and delegated them to someone or something else. As a leader, if you are spending your days accomplishing things that drain your energy, you will burn out quickly.

Which tasks can you begin efficiently delegating to your church staff this week?

If you liked this, you'll also enjoy 4 Questions Successful Leaders Ask Themselves