The Art of Letting Go: The Challenges

Being a homeroom teacher was fun and easy for me. Managing a class of ten year old students, preparing study plans, and communicate with parents can be handled well by myself. Apart from doing my core duties, I was person in charge for school events. I handled all the details of the events, so it can run smoothly.

Few years later, I become school principal. My work area becomes broader, meaning that I have more tasks and responsibilities at hand. I did school principal duties but never let go my old duties to handle all the small details of school events including designing the banner. Then comes the burnout.

I wanted to give those tasks to others, yet I was worried they will not meet 'my standards'. If I have learned the skills for years, would it be such a waste to give the task to an amateur? What if something was gone wrong?Will I be the one who responsible for it? Should I teach them first? But, how long it takes for them to achieve my current skills? Months? Years?

Those thought haunted me. It was difficult to let things go. But, I realize that I am not a can-do-it-all man. I also remember, it's the opportunities given by my former superior that helps me to upgrade my skills tho this level. So, I started to delegate.

I thought delegating will just happen smoothly after I take on the idea of delegating tasks, but I was wrong. Totally wrong. I appointed a teacher to be in charged of handling our school big events. He refused it at first. He claimed that he is not good enough for the task. I told him that I gathered all the notes I have when I was in charge of the event, and (definitely) he could always come to me for inquiry. Importantly, I would not leave him alone on the task because I would check on the progress and discuss on the problem that might raised. He still refused. After a long discussion, I found out his biggest concern: He was afraid to be a scapegoat in case failure happened. He might had lose face among his colleagues if that happened.

Distributing your leadership can be quite challenging not only for you as a leader, but also to people being delegated. For leaders, the challenge might include:

• Fear of losing control
• It takes time to mentor people to do something you can do
• Not sure if your team can do it as good as you
• Not getting credit. When it is done by others you did not get credit (at least not directly)

For the team members who are being delegated, the challenges might include:

• Fear of failure. Nobody wants to fail.
• The are afraid they are the one to blame when failure happens.
• They feel it is not in their job description or at least not their responsibility a.k.a don't care.
• They think they are not experienced on that matter.

So, how to overcome these challenges? What are the method of choosing the right person to delegate? Stay tuned, leaders! I'll be back (hopefully soon).