6 tips to coach your CEO on better delegation
Chiefs of Staff and Executive Assistants, if you have a CEO that can’t delegate, say hello to 12+ hour days while you deal with a new crisis every week. Remember, the more you can help your CEO delegate, the more you can reduce your Office of the CEO workload, strengthen your C-suite team capabilities, and speed up execution.
Here are 6 tips to coach your CEO on better delegation:
1. Identify what to delegate (and what NOT to)
Define your CEO’s Zone of Genius (high skill, high will, high value) and Zone of Incompetence (low skill, low will, low value). Let your CEO retain work in the former and delegate work in the latter.
2. Play to your team’s strengths
Take stock of every C-suite team member’s strengths and identify star performers on their teams. Delegate work that fits into their respective Zones of Genius.
3. Get clear on desired outcome
Paint the picture of what amazing looks like. For example: “Hey CFO, please work with the CMO and the Director of Sales to create a compelling 10 page business case deck with quantitative and qualitative reasoning to invest in a new CRM technology and deliver this to me in 2 weeks at a High Priority level while spending about 20 hours on this project.”
4. Let failure happen
If this is the first time that you are delegating a specific task or project, expect failure to happen at the onset. Be patient and let the situation play out before giving any course correction so you avoid CEO micromanagement.
5. Set up 2-way feedback
Set up an open CEO communication channel beforehand before blockers or issues crop up. This allows you to talk honestly about what went wrong and to deliver any coaching and course corrections needed.
6. Celebrate the wins
Nothing feels better than CEO praise in front of your peers, so make sure to publicly and privately celebrate the successes of your team on a regular basis.
There you have it - 6 delegation tips to work on with your CEO. These are especially relevant when you are reviewing their calendar, email inbox and task list. Implement these and watch your workload decrease as your Office of the CEO returns to calm, steady waters.
Follow Mackenzie Lee, Cedar CEO, on LinkedIn here to discover more strategies for coaching your CEO on effective delegation and improving your Office of the CEO’s efficiency.
