Boundaries for Leaders: Results, Relationships, and Being Ridiculously in Charge

by Henry Cloud

Then there is the second group of patterns, which is the repetition of the same work. What I mean by this is that if there is something that only you can do, at least in the beginning, but then you find that you are doing that same thing over and over again in the same way, and you pretty much have it nailed, it might be time to turn that over to someone else. There is a pattern of work, a repeatable formula, to what you are doing, and that means it is probably transferable. Leadership demands that you move it down the organizational tree. If there is a known path of the work, and it is repetitive, it can probably be taught. And if someone else can be taught to do it, it might be time to delegate that work, so that you can get back to doing what only you can do: lead. At times, these repeatable patterns can even be pretty high-level activities, such as driving a merger or an acquisition. Sometimes, after you have done enough of those, the path is clear and the operational pattern for execution can be taught and handed over to someone else. Then you can reserve your time and effort for mergers or acquisitions (or whatever we are talking about) that are decidedly different or high stakes—and that require the leader’s deeper involvement. Figure out what the business needs from you and only you, and do that.