Delegate to Elevate: The 4 Questions Every Manager Must Ask

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Welcome back, everyone. Today in this podcast, we're going to explore practical ideas that you as a leader, as a manager, can apply right away. My name is Greg Gillum, and today we're diving into decision-making and delegation. When to hold on to decisions, and then when to let others own them, all without you losing control. We're going to unpack an HBR article by Cheryl Strauss Einhorn called, Should You Delegate That Decision? Ask These Four Questions. It's from September 2025, Harvard.

I'll walk you through the framework, offer a real-life example, and then close with actionable tips that you can start using right now. All right, so let's diagnose the problem. Every leader hits this tension. Your calendar's full. You're being pulled in many different directions. But you also want high-quality work, clear accountability, and you want to start gaining momentum in your team. The instinct is often to keep decisions to yourself because nobody else can

do it better, right? That's the thinking. But that comes with great cost, burnout, bottlenecks, stunted growth for your team members, and lost opportunities. The author argues that effective, sustainable leadership means delegating the right decisions to the right people. Now, not delegating everything, but making smart trade-offs. All right, so to decide whether or to delegate a particular decision and to whom, the article says to ask four key questions. So we're going to go through those now.

Number one, who's closest to the action and what can they see that you cannot. The person closest to the action usually has firsthand insight. They have more detailed information, usually, and the context that you may not see as a senior leader. So by delegating to them, you often get decisions that are more accurate, better aligned with reality on the ground. So that's number one, who's closest to the action.

Number two, is this a decision that we've made before? Could it be put into some sort of routine? If it's a recurring decision, perhaps you can build a process, you can draft a template, or use a checklist, even automate parts of it with AI. The more routine it is, the more it makes sense to delegate or systematize, freeing up your thinking for more strategic, novel work. So that's number two. can this decision be made into more of a routine?

Number three, whose perspective would lead to a better answer than mine? So it's not just about proximity, who's closest. Sometimes someone else has technical expertise. They may have a different context that's informed by different constraints. They may just have a different viewpoint that you might not fully grasp. And so letting others decide can actually improve the decision quality oftentimes. So whose perspective would lead to a better answer than mine? That's number three.

And the final one, number four, where is momentum being stalled right now? Who could actually move it forward? Sometimes projects or issues lag because decisions are waiting on you or no one has been empowered to make them. So identify those bottlenecks. Is there someone on the team who could take ownership and break through these bottlenecks? Delegation here can be a force for speeding up progress and reducing drag. So here are the core insights to really hold on to.

Delegation isn't abdication. It's not relinquishing your responsibility. Letting go of some decisions doesn't mean losing control. It means extending your leadership arm by enabling other people. The second point, the right balance. You don't delegate everything. You can also, you can't micromanage everything either. So you can't delegate everything, but you also can't micromanage everything. And so using these four questions to decide what to keep and what to delegate on.

Third point, systemization helps. When decisions are repeated, invest in templates, processes, even automation so that you don't have to revisit the same decision over and over again. Fourth, delegation fosters growth and accountability. When you give others authority to decide, they learn, they gain confidence, and you help scale leadership across the organization, certainly on your team. And then finally, bottlenecks are often signs that you're needed in the wrong place.

The goal is to push decisions downward, not unnecessarily upward.

So let's get practical. Here are some tips that you can try tomorrow or even today to apply this framework. So number one is use a decision audit. Take the past week or two and really sit down and list decisions that you've made. For each one, ask yourself, could someone else have made this using one or more of the four questions? You might discover patterns of unnecessary involvement.

Number two, create a decision matrix template. So build a simple tool that your leaders or team members can use. So for instance, put the four questions on an Excel spreadsheet and put yes or no with a scale of one to five. And then when a decision comes up, run it through that tool to decide what can be delegated. Number three, define decision rights transparently, meaning for recurring decisions, define who owns them.

Make it explicit. So this kind of decision is owned by this person or this role, or in other situations, these decisions have to be escalated to me. So just make it very transparent what decisions can be owned, what decisions need to be escalated. That reduces confusion and delay. Okay. Number four, train and support. So for people that you delegate to. Ensure they have clarity on criteria, constraints, what authority they have.

Don't just dump the decision on them. Provide coaching, provide feedback, and put up the guardrails necessary for them to make effective delegated decisions. And then finally, monitor and reflect. After a delegated decision, reflect. Did it go well? Were there unintended consequences? Was the person ready? What support was missing? And then use that reflection to improve the process. And always look for places and projects where progress is stalled or waiting on a decision intervention.

Go ahead and by not making that decision, but by assigning someone to do so, you're going to uncover or release that bottleneck. Empower well on your team.

Okay, so here's a quick illustrative example of this situation. So imagine that you're a VP of marketing and a team member is requesting your approval for every simple design tweak, font, border, color, placement. You're reviewing 50 minor design changes a week, which consumes a lot of your time. So question number one, who's the closest to the action? Well, the design team is. So the design lead would then be able to take ownership of many of these things.

Number two is the decision that we've made before. Yes, many times we've made this decision. So we have style guidelines that can be made by the team lead. Question three, whose perspective would lead to a better answer? The designer likely knows better for smaller tweaks for sure. And then finally, where is momentum being stalled? Every design change awaits your calendar. So momentum slows down.

So by taking a really close look at all of the decisions that are being made on this team right now, if you're delegating probably 80% of the decisions would speed things up, empower them, and give you a lot more time to think. So you delegate decision rights for minor design tweaks to the design lead, set up a checklist of what qualifies as minor, and then you retain review only for the major deviations. And the outcome then, designers work faster, you free up more time for strategic.

Decisions, and your team morale improves.

Now, delegation isn't always smooth. Here are some potential pitfalls and how to avoid them. Number one, over-delegating without context. If someone lacks the context or the clarity, decisions may misalign. So the solution there is to provide very clear boundaries and rationale up front. Second thing, not trusting your person to delegate to. If you stay too involved because you don't trust them, it undermines both speed and confidence. So set your expectations and set them very clearly.

Third, ignoring risks. Some decisions are high stakes. Even with delegation, you may need to retain oversight or have escalation checks in place. And finally, not following up. Delegation does not mean out of sight. Follow through with feedback so people will learn and improve and you'll get a lot more time in your calendar.

So to wrap up, the power of leadership isn't in doing everything yourself. It's in amplifying your impact through other people. Asking these four questions gives you a framework to decide what to keep versus what to hand off, systematically growing capability in your team and freeing your own bandwidth for higher leveraged work. So a challenge this week, pick a decision that you normally make yourself that could be delegated, run it through the four questions, and if it passes, delegate it.

Observe what changes. All right, well, that's it for today. Thanks for joining the Manager Lab. I hope you found today valued and valuable. Share this episode with the leader you know, and until next time we meet in the manager lab, do good work. So you delegate decision rights for minor design tweaks to the design lead, set up a checklist of what qualifies as minor, and then you retain review only for the major deviations.

And the outcome then, designers work faster, you free up more time for strategic strategic decisions and your team morale improves. Now, delegation isn't always smooth. Here are some potential pitfalls and how to avoid them. Number one, over-delegating without context. If someone lacks the context or the clarity, decisions may misalign. So the solution there is to provide very clear boundaries and rationale up front.

Second thing, not trusting your person to delegate to. If you stay too involved because you don't trust them, it undermines both speed and confidence. So set your expectations and set them very clearly. Third, ignoring risks. Some decisions are high stakes. Even with delegation, you may need to retain oversight or have escalation checks in place. And finally, not following up.

Delegation does not mean out of sight. Follow through with feedback so people will learn and improve and you'll get a lot more time in your calendar. So to wrap up, the power of leadership isn't in doing everything yourself. It's in amplifying your impact through other people. Asking these four questions gives you a framework to decide what to keep versus what to hand off, systematically growing capability in your team and freeing your own bandwidth for higher leveraged work.

So a challenge this week, pick a decision that you normally make yourself that could be delegated. run it through the four questions, and if it passes, delegate it. Observe what changes. All right, well, that's it for today. Thanks for joining the Manager Lab. I hope you found today valuable. Share this episode with a leader you know, and until next time we meet in the Manager Lab, do good work. Music.