You get someone else to deliver the hard news
When hard news has to be delivered — a cut, a no, a difficult message — you arrange for someone else to be the one who says it. You tell yourself it is appropriate delegation, but really you are keeping your own hands clean of the discomfort that is yours to carry.
Come, let us be honest, as a leader must first be with himself. Be honest that this is avoidance wearing the mask of delegation — there is real delegation and there is offloading your discomfort and calling it delegation, and you know which this is; the first duty is to name it plainly, for you cannot correct what you will not name, and every leader who drifts into cowardice does so by telling himself a kinder story. The hard message is precisely where your presence is owed — those who receive hard news deserve it from the one responsible, because authority and its weight are inseparable, and to take the power but send a proxy to bear the delivery is to keep the authority and refuse the weight; people feel it, and their respect quietly withdraws. And deliver it yourself, plainly and humanely, and carry the weight — say the difficult words directly, kind in delivery and clear in decision, and let it cost what it costs, for you will find the discomfort faced is smaller than the dread of it, and the respect earned by carrying your own weight is worth more than the comfort of shifting it. What hard message have you been arranging for someone else to carry?
What changes unlock by starting
- You name the avoidance behind the 'delegation'
- You see the hard message as where your presence is owed
- You deliver it yourself, plainly and humanely
- You find the dread exceeded the deed, and earn real respect