Leadership and Delegation

Grapes on the wine ... vineyard north of Atlanta

Tonight was my first conference call for the Ph.D. program.  I admit that I really don't like talking on the phone.  I have a hard time listening, my mind races so quickly and I drift off so easily, so this will be a challenge.  The topic is interesting, my classmates seem to be intelligent and fun, and my professor is one of the best.  The first week of class is always slow, so I have confidence the calls will pick up in the coming weeks and that I will develop better listening skills.

So, leadership ... our organization is working on making managers into less, well, managerial, and more leaders and champions of development.  Difficult road, teaching old dogs new tricks is the cliched analogy that comes to mind.  I'm thinking of how I can be a leader, in my individual contributor role at work, and at home.

I'm also thinking that I'm hungry and that my husband, who goes to the gym after work, while I stay home and study, pretend to use my home gym, make dinner, and take care of household duties, can't make dinner.  I tried to delegate dinner to him Tuesday night, after an evening of studying and answering discussion threads online, and found that I actually had to instruct him while preparing the rest of the dinner around him - while he looked up from trimming the chicken every three seconds at the basketball game, lest we never eat - or get food poisoning.  My husband is a self-proclaimed non-chef, the opposite of me.  We joked, when I went back to school to get my Master's degree, and then my Ph.D., that he'd have to pick up some slack at home, so he said, "Great, I can make dinner, what kind of cereal do you want?"  But it's not a joke, he cannot cook, at all.  And I cannot eat meals that are not prepared fresh - at all.

This brings to mind my view of leadership, and how my role in my organization is probably well-placed.  I am a do-er.  I make things happen.  I love my job, I'm very good at my job, and I've never received anything less than a promotion, or a rare outstanding at each of my performance appraisals.  Being faced this fall with the possibility to be promoted to HR Manager, while knowing I could not move 1500 miles away at the moment, I realized that I might not make the best HR Manager right now.  I am not sure I know how to delegate, how to let go of tasks for which I'm responsible.  I see this in so many ineffective leaders, and I fear this in myself.  This will be something I work on if I want to be a manager/leader.