The Crucial Difference Between Delegating, Off-Loading, and Empowering

There is a significant difference between delegating decisions, off-loading tasks, and empowering others. It’s easy to mix these up. Leaders think they are empowering others, but oftentimes they’re really just delegating or off-loading.

Delegation decisions says, "This is what I need you to do and how I need you to do it."

Off-loading tasks says, "I’m busy. Just handle it."

But empowering others is significantly different. It says, "This is our vision... based on our vision, what are ways we could address this issue or project? I want to know your thoughts. I believe you can do this. Will you help us?”

The most empowering leaders I know focus primarily on people, not tasks. And what’s ironic is that over the long term the tasks get done quite effectively. The role of a leader is to be a cultivator and a gatekeeper of the values, the vision, and the mission of a group of people. But how those are lived out are open for discussion. Several years ago my friend Bryan Long summarized this well when he told me, “Values are non-negotiable and leader-protected, but rhythms are negotiable and community-discerned.”

Empowering leaders believe vision ends with a period, but the expression of that vision ends with a question-mark.

Be a leader who empowers.

First a period. Then a question mark.