What Is Delegative Leadership [And How to Implement It]

Feb 13

I’m a pretty self-motivated person and I love the space to try out new ideas, so the first time I encountered a manager with a delegative leadership style, I was in love. In fact, this is the leadership style I deploy most of the time in raising my kids. Some studies I’ve read even show this leadership style as a popular favorite among many professionals (see the video later for references).

But I’ve also seen this style of leadership flop with some teams I’ve worked on. Some of that is due to a misunderstanding of what this leadership style is and how to execute it. Today, I’m going to share some of my encounters with delegative leaders and how to make it work for your teams.

Key Takeaways

Delegative leadership is not hands-off leadership. You are still on the hook for results and accountable as the leader.
Managers still provide goals, milestones, and resources to their teams, but let their teams determine how work is done.
This style of leadership works best in teams with certain characteristics. It’s not for everyone.

What Is Delegative Leadership?

As always, let’s first get a working definition of the topic. Delegative leadership is a style of leadership where the manager delegates many tasks and responsibilities to the team while allowing them the autonomy to make decisions and take ownership of their work.

I like to think of it this way. It’s when leaders tell their teams what needs to be accomplished, when it needs to be accomplished, and why it needs to be accomplished, but they let individual team members decide how the work gets done. It’s the what, when, and why without the how.

With this style of leadership, the manager creates a safe space in which team members can operate and make decisions. It’s about trust, empowerment, and accountability.

Is It the Same as the Laissez-Faire Leadership Style

Some people do refer to this leadership style as laissez-faire, but I don’t think the term paints the best picture. Delegative leadership shouldn’t be confused with hands-off leadership, because it’s not. As a leader, you will still be involved, just in different ways than say a micromanager.

This isn’t about delegating responsibilities so you don’t have to do anything or so that you can shift the blame.

This can be a challenging leadership style to get right because leaders have to provide general guidance but leave the decisions up to their very competent team. It’s about empowering team members with knowledge and resources and then letting them make decisions under general guidance.

It’s not about leaving your team alone to figure things out - not entirely. There still has to be some minimal intervention to make this work.

How to Make Delegative Leadership Work

To implement a delegative leadership style, you’re going to need a few things in place with your team.

Trust

This style of leadership only works when there is trust established not only between the manager and team members but also among the team members themselves. Many leaders overlook trust between team members and only focus on building trust between themselves and individual members of the team. But without trust between all members, this style quickly breaks down.

Autonomy

While it is important to be available for support and general guidance, you have to create an environment that gives each team member the freedom to make decisions without you interfering. A team member can’t be held accountable for their decisions when you intervened and changed the outcome. Team members need to feel that they truly have the autonomy to decide the best way to complete their work.

Competence

This style of leadership doesn’t work well in teams with little knowledge and experience. It works best with highly skilled, highly competent people. Before you implement a delegative style of leadership you need to ensure your team has the proper training, experience, and knowledge to make good decisions. And yes, decision-making itself is a skill.

Skilled teams with high degrees of competence tend to also be more confident in the type of work they are doing. If you try to deploy this leadership style in teams that lack confidence, it most likely will backfire and overwhelm them.

Accountability

Team members need to understand that they will be held accountable for their work and results. While you are there for support and guidance when they need you, they also understand that they alone are responsible for their decisions and actions.

At the same time, your team should feel safe making mistakes. They should be encouraged to take risks and learn from those mistakes. This also means that leaders should have some type of safety net for those mistakes. Depending on the competence of your team, you may have more or fewer bumper guards in place for them to operate within. I’ll discuss this more in a later section.

Please note that just because the team is held accountable for their mistakes, doesn’t mean that you as the leader are not still held accountable.

Communication

If you’re a new manager who hasn’t been through communication coaching, this may not be the time to try out this style of leadership. Communication is key to making this work. There must be close, open communication between team members and the manager. In addition, expectations must be clear as well as deadlines. Ambiguity in what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and why it needs to be done will result in catastrophic results.

Situations Where Delegative Leadership Works Well

Here are some work environments where I’ve seen delegative leadership work well.

Marketing and Creative

One of the perks of delegative leadership is that it lends teams to innovate. For roles often found within marketing, creative, and design, this style of leadership works especially well. These teams need people to have the freedom to, well, create. If you need creativity and innovation, try this leadership style.

Startups

I don’t have to tell anyone who’s worked in a startup that things are constantly changing, adapting, and evolving. This style of leadership facilitates that environment well because it’s agile. Delegative leadership doesn’t have as many bottlenecks because you don’t have to wait for constant approvals. And many times startup managers don’t have time to approve every little detail.

R&D

Research and development teams need autonomy to experiment and figure out what works and what doesn’t. Delegative leadership works well for these teams because of the level of autonomy it provides.

Technology Development

Similar to R&D and creative teams, developers also need the autonomy to test and try new ideas.

Teams with Short-Term Projects

If your team is project-based, this style of leadership is good because it allows them to move quickly. The autonomy and lack of approvals at every stage serve well for these teams.

Writing

Anyone who writes technical, marketing, sales, or any other type of copy usually appreciates the freedom to execute their writing the way they best see fit. Telling them what needs to be accomplished and setting them free to do it usually has good results in my experience.

Highly Educated Teams

Teams of highly educated people such as doctors, lawyers, and accountants often experience high levels of success with this style of leadership. Many of my friends in these spaces enjoy a high degree of autonomy in their work and in return they are highly productive.

Recruiting

Some of the best recruiting teams I’ve ever been a part of have delegative leaders at the helm. When the expectations are clear, the resources asked for are given, and recruiters are given the autonomy to perform, they can do quite well.

Highly Motivated Teams

Not everyone will take their autonomy and turn it into productivity. Teams with high degrees of intrinsic motivation are more likely in my experience to be productive. If team members have a natural drive to perform, giving them the autonomy to do so usually produces high quality work product.

Pros and Cons of Delegative Leadership

I’ve alluded to some of these already, but I think it’s good to clearly spell out some of the advantages and disadvantages that can occur with delegative leadership. Here they are.

Advantages of Delegative Leadership

Improved Motivation
Increased Creativity
Enhanced Moral
Better Employee Satisfaction
More Personal Growth
Fewer Burnouts
Faster Workflows
More Accountability
Fewer Meetings
Better Reputation Among Colleagues
More Respect Among Team Members
Higher Productivity
Work Goes On Without the Leader
Higher Degrees of Trust Among Team Members
More Independent Thinkers Capable of Solving Their Own Problems

Disadvantages of Delegative Leadership

Feeling of Not Being in Control
Mistakes Can Be Made More Frequently Without the Right Guidance and Understanding
Hard to Strike Balance of Autonomy and Involvement
Can Create Power Struggles Within a Team
Some Team Members May Not Handle Autonomy Well
Lower Productivity in Teams with Lower Competence and Motivation
Ambiguity Can Stress Some Team Members
Can Lead to Undesirable Activity Like Conflict or Bullying

I do believe that all of these can be minimized, if not neutralized, with the right understanding of how to implement a delegative leadership style. Nonetheless, it’s important to know what could happen if you don’t have the right team and the right implementation.

How to Implement a Delegating Leadership Style

You can’t just wake up one morning and decide you’re going to start delegating. If you try to flip a switch and turn it on, you’ll give your employees culture shock whiplash. Here are some things that need to happen over time before you can reap the benefits of this leadership style.

Selective Delegation

Don’t start delegating everything, or even anything at random. You want to deploy selective delegation. Start small and delegate tasks to the team members who have the strongest aptitude for tackling them.

Empower With Resources

When you delegate responsibilities, ensure that the team members have the knowledge, experience, and resources to complete it successfully. Implementing this style of leadership with a team that does not possess the experience to make decisions will backfire.

Clear Expectations

There should be no ambiguity about what must be completed, when it must be completed, and why it is being completed. If you leave room for ambiguity in those three areas, mistakes will happen, team members will get frustrated, and your morale and productivity will plummet.

Use 3 Levels of Delegation

If you’re just getting started with delegative leadership or you’ve taken over a new team that you don’t know well, it’s best to inch your team into it with four different levels of autonomy.

Level 1

Have them research the topic, outline options to complete it, and make a recommendation on how to proceed. Ask them for the pros and cons of each option and to tell you how they think they should complete the task. If you agree, authorize it, if not work with them to come up with a better game plan and explain why you think it will work best.

Level 2

Tell the team member to decide on how to proceed and keep you in the loop with their decisions. Let them know clearly that you don’t want to be surprised by someone else.

Level 3

Let the team members make decisions themselves. Let them know that you trust them completely and there is no need to report back on every little task. Empower them to follow through how they best see fit with your full support. Ask to make sure they have everything they need to execute.

Explain Why Tasks Matter

Many leaders communicate tasks and deadlines but fail to communicate why a particular project or task matters to the department and organization. When employees understand why things matter, they are better equipped to make decisions.

Communicate Why You Are Delegating

Don’t assume everyone will see the value in delegative leadership that you do. Some may see this as you being lazy or disengaged. It’s important to communicate why you are making this change to a more delegative style and why that matters to them.

Communicate it in a way that excites them so they see how it will affect their personal growth. In fact, you could have them read this article as a good starting place.

Hold Everyone Accountable

Team members need to know that they’ll be held accountable for their decisions, but they also need to know that you’re not shifting blame or trying to avoid it. You’re still the leader of the team and ultimately if someone fails, that is on you as the leader. It is your job to arm your team with the knowledge to succeed.

Encourage Feedback

For this to work you need team members to share insights, concerns, and suggestions with you and one another. In the beginning, it may be beneficial to have a regular, structured meeting where the entire team can brief everyone else on their work. This will encourage employees to build trust.

Resist the Urge to Solve Problems For Them

You want to provide guidance, but you don’t want to solve problems for them. You’re not trying to be the lawn mower parent in the workplace. Yes, that’s a real term. One of the goals and characteristics of a high-performing team is that they can solve their problems. Lead them to their solutions. Help them think through problems. Give them ideas, but don’t solve the problem for them.

Guide them, give them a nudge when they need it, but encourage them to figure it out on their own.

Examples of Delegative Leadership Style

Below are some examples of delegative leaders that I’ve worked for in the past and what it was like to work on their teams.

Geoffrey Beene (Retail)

One of my first jobs was at a local clothing retailer. I can still remember my store manager and district manager as if it was yesterday. They didn’t use delegative leadership exclusively, but most managers aren’t all-or-nothing.

In many retail and hospitality environments, they give associates canned phrases that they have to say at different stages of the customer’s shopping experience. It kills creativity and in many situations, it makes for mediocre service.

But that wasn’t the case here. I can remember attending several store training sessions on what great customer service looked like. They had different associates stand up and share experiences they enjoyed at other establishments, the managers shared their own thoughts, and I think there were even some corporate videos.

The point was that they empowered us to think about experiences we enjoyed and gave us some parameters to operate in. But then they let us decide how to execute day to day great customer service each day and we were held accountable for our own decisions by store evaluations and secret shoppers.

What I enjoyed about this was that it gave me the ability to determine how to interact with a customer. It gave me the ability to try new ideas and learn how to read people and respond accordingly rather than be forced to respond with canned answers regardless of the situation.

This is delegative leadership.

Lev Shomea Academy (Education)

This was an extreme case of delegative leadership, but still a positive one for me. For a time I taught at a private academy and the school’s director had a very hands-off approach. The teachers were all given instructions about what parent expectations were for their children’s educational progression and then empowered with any resources we needed to execute a plan to meet those expectations.

I remember being taken to a curriculum store where we had our pick of textbooks to teach from. The school director told us, here is everything available, select what you think are the best resources for your classes. We selected the textbooks, designed the curriculum, and taught it. We even came up with some of the evaluation tools and procedures to evaluate the success of each student.

For a highly competent, highly motivated team, this was the perfect environment. It increased the morale and motivation of each teacher. We also had some great successes with our students.

Accounting Principles (Recruitment)

This was one of my favorite jobs because of the team and the leadership. When I arrived, they already had a very successful delegative leadership environment. The average tenure on the team was around 7 years, which is almost unheard of in most recruiting agencies. And because they were all highly trained, highly experienced, and highly competent, they could bring new people directly into this leadership style with success.

I went through extensive training. In fact, for the first three months, I don’t even think they let me sell or recruit. They wanted to make sure I understood their business and that I had the confidence to operate autonomously before they took off the training wheels. Or at least that’s how it felt.

Even after my training period, I was paired with another long-term veteran who helped guide me through the business and how to be successful. We went on meetings together, we problem-solved together, and we did everything together.

Every morning the manager would hold one meeting where we all shared our openings and targets and then shared valuable information or offered to make introductions to others that would facilitate each person’s success.

It was rare that anyone ever checked up on me. That didn’t mean the manager was out of touch. When something on the dashboard was out of the norm, I was always pulled in for a quick one-on-one and I was always held accountable. But it never felt like being called into the principal’s office. Rather, it was to ask for an update and my thoughts on what was going on with my desk. As long as I had a clear explanation, everything was fine. And many times during those meetings, my manager offered helpful guidance when I brought up issues and roadblocks that I was trying to solve.

Optim Recruiting (Recruitment)

Shortly after I launched Optim Recruiting back in 2019 I realized that I needed some extra administrative help so that I could focus on more growth activities. After seeing some success with other business owners I respected, I decided to try using virtual assistants to help with this need. I started with a US-based assistant and then later started using offshore assistants exclusively.

At first, I failed with a couple of assistants for the same reasons many others do. There were cultural differences and I wasn’t hiring highly educated, highly specialized people who understood my industry. Once I started deploying some of the implementation strategies I mentioned earlier in this article, things started coming together. Within a couple of months, I had offshore help that was outperforming some of my US counterparts.

I like this example because it shows that even with less skilled teams in cultures where they are more hesitant to offer feedback, you can make delegative leadership work. But you can’t go full speed into it. You have to retrain your team, build trust, and teach them how to make solid decisions. You also need a process in place so there is no mistake that you can’t fix quickly.

Delegative Leadership Recommended Reading

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Questions to Assess Accountability

Describe Your Leadership Style

Cole Sperry has been a recruiter and resume writer since 2015, working with tens of thousands of job seekers, and hundreds of employers. Today Cole runs a botique advisory firm consulting with dozens of recruiting firms and is the Managing Editor at OptimCareers.com.