Clear Delegation

Everyone knows delegation is important, but most of the advice you hear about it is one-sided: “You’ve got to trust your people!” “The best ideas come from the bottom, not the top!” “Detailed job descriptions lay the groundwork for effective evaluation.” Each of these bits of advice captures part of the picture. But followed separately, each leads into its own morass of error. Effective delegators grant authority while also giving guidance and providing for accountability.

Delegation is central to organizational life. Staff delegate to one other and to volunteers. The board delegates to the clergy leader. Volunteers recruit and delegate to other volunteers. In every case, effective delegation includes three main elements: authority, guidance, and accountability.

Authority = Legitimate Power

In many congregations, people don’t like to talk about authority; we’d rather say we’re delegating work. That’s true, of course, as far as it goes. But even the most basic tasks, like sweeping the floor, require some authority. As the officially appointed sweeper, you may take a church-owned broom out of the closet. You can ask people to get out of the way, and they should do it. You can recruit others to assist. If your broom breaks, you can ask the sexton to fix it or order a new one.

Delegation benefits from advance thinking about what authority should go with it. Work almost always requires money, people, and space. The default way of handling this in many congregations is to say, “If you need anything, let me know.” This approach makes actions that could be quick and simple slow and complicated—or ensures that people work around the system, getting things done by spending their own money or using their informal, pecking-order power. No wonder it’s so hard to recruit newcomers!

Guidance = Saying What You Want and How You Want It Done

We have too much respect for one another’s common sense sometimes. We assume that everybody knows how floors should be swept, that experts know how websites should be designed, and that all ministers know what people expect from them. Experts do know more than non-experts about some things, but that is no excuse for failing to give guidance.

Guidance includes two elements. One is a clear statement of the desired outcomes of the work. This kind of statement is not easy to write! One pitfall is to specify inputs instead of outcomes—HOW work should be done: “Use the push broom for the Parish Hall.” “Preach from the high pulpit wearing a Geneva gown.” “Use our denominational curriculum.”

It is much harder to agree on outcomes: “Ensure that debris does not accumulate from week to week.” “Retain the support of those who admired Dr. Jones’s preaching while speaking to the needs of younger parents.” “Help children to grow into adults who know the love of God and act on it through service to others.”

Some of these things are hard to measure! That is no one’s fault. But having stated what you want, you then can devise appropriate metrics. No metric will be perfect, but it is always possible to find some, once you have clearly stated what you want. For instance, you might use spot inspections of the floor, interviews with the old-timers, or pulpit testimonials from high-school graduates on “The Difference Growing Up at St. Bart’s Made for Me.”

There is a time and place for greater specificity. But first, we delegators need to say—both to ourselves and to our delegates—what we are really seeking to accomplish through their efforts. Prematurely worrying that what we really want will be hard to measure doesn’t help.

Accountability = A Plan to Talk About It in the Future

I live in a small town with a barbershop on the main corner. One day I was in the chair and the barber laughed. “See that guy?” he said, pointing out the window. “A few weeks ago, I cut his hair, and he was out of cash. Now he crosses the street so I won’t see him.” Living in a small town, I find, means that you see people again. It’s a great incentive to be honest!

Accountability is about circling back to have another conversation to exchange perspectives about how the work worked out. It’s tempting to avoid these conversations, or to depersonalize them by reducing them to forms and scorecards. People often say, “You can’t evaluate a volunteer,” which is just another way to avoid a conversation that can be—I will not sugarcoat it—difficult or even painful for both parties.

Evaluations are not always positive and can sometimes be one step toward termination. Employees do get fired and volunteers sometimes must be relieved of roles they cherish. Those conversations are no fun, but in the long run, happiness is better served by frankness than by letting a bad situation fester.

The Mission Benefits

Congregations are quite prone to giving people power without accountability. We often do this with longstanding volunteers, thanking them for doing things nobody wanted done. On the other hand, we frequently hold people accountable for things they have no power to accomplish or prevent (paid staff, especially). That situation places conscientious people—who feel guilty about failing at what they were never asked to do or given what they needed to succeed—into a stress posture that can be quite painful and unhealthy.

Skilled delegators acknowledge the importance of power, state plainly the results we hope for, and communicate promptly about our perceptions of what happens. When those pieces are in place, people may still be critical or unhappy, but the pathway to improvement is well lit and ready to be followed.