Leaders delegate authority and responsibility

Those in leadership know that leadership needs to be given away. Here are so practical things to think about when leading others towards a desired goal.

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We invited Canon Yemi Adedeji onto the Stronger conference this year. His session title was this: ‘Leaders who create leaders’. We asked Yemi to speak on this subject because there are a lot of leaders out there who are asking themselves ‘how can I develop leaders around me?’, or ‘How can I identify, train up, release people around me into leadership roles?’.

But first, let me introduce you to Yemi Adedeji. He is an Anglican priest, pastor at Jesus House London and Principal Consultant at RyA Consultants where he delivers strategic advice and connects leaders across the globe. Known as “the bridge” he has over the last two decades served as a link between individuals, churches and organisations while also connecting them with opportunities that will advance their work. Yemi is also a leadership coach, author, conference speaker and regular commentator at BBC.

As I listened to Yemi, I was struck by a number of key principles that might serve you as you seek to release leadership around you. Have a look below and see which resonates:

1.Leaders define reality

This is what Yemi said to us:

‘It is important for you first to ask the questions: where am I? Where am I in my plan, in my purpose, my agenda? Where am I in my vision? Where am I in what I want to be? what I don't want to be? Because until you are able to understand yourself, you're not able to know exactly where you want to go.

As leaders, our first task is to define reality. This is what I was always taught as a growing leader and it’s a helpful reminder from Yemi. No matter what is in front of you as a leader, whether it’s growing leaders around you or some other task, define reality. Don’t sugar coat the reality.

The leader can define reality in a number of ways. There are ways to take measurements depending on what it is you’re defining. A bit like a ship’s captain might order ‘soundings’ to be taken, measurements of the depth of the water. That’s what we as leaders need to do, and of course it’s a process that is dependent on God in prayer.

So when it comes to raising up other leaders around us, questions like: how many other leaders are there already being released? Is there a clear pathway for leaders to come through? Who identifies the those leaders? Are they clear about expectations on them? How do people find out about the process of stepping into leadership? Are leaders clear about where they are going?

2.Leaders discern direction

Yemi said this in his session:

We must also know where we want to go that is the future. Where do we want to go? So this is about creating the vision for the future of where we want to go?

As Christian leaders we know that we don’t create the vision, God creates the vision, it’s his vision for your business, your church, your project or team, and our role as a Christian leader is to discern where he is leading us.

There are a number of ways we can discern God’s direction. For example:

-Working together with your core team
-Making space in personal prayer to listen to key words or verses
-Bringing in an external consultant to lead a day on vision and direction
-Have an offsite with your team or on you own. Get out of the normal context
-Establish a team of advisors that can act as a sounding board for ideas and direction

Discerning direction is one of the most exciting things. It’s about uncovering what God wants to do in us and through us and through our organization. But having a sense of direction is essential when it comes to raising up new leaders and developing leaders around us too because we need to be able to share what it is we’re working towards, even if that’s not entirely clear in the short term, as it often hasn’t in the last couple of years with covid.

This is what Yemi said about vision:

We need to get the vision, conceptualise the vision, communicate the vision, enable people buy into the vision, release people to act on the vision.

3.Leaders invest in others

Yemi share this in his session:

The Bible is full of examples of leaders that created leaders. Amongst them, Moses created a leader in Joshua. You see the same thing in David and Solomon, we see the same thing in Elijah that created leadership in Elisha, Paul created leadership in Timothy and others. And of course, the ultimate of all is how Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour created leadership within the disciples.

The point is that the bible paints a very clear picture of leaders investing in other leaders. God raises up new generations of leaders time and again and he uses leaders of the current generation to do so.

Sometimes the current generation of leaders may not be very good at releasing leadership. This is what Yemi said:

‘The main problem why leaders don't make space for other leaders is because of insecurity. Because they think the leader might be better than them, or they might do better than them..’

As leaders, one of our primary functions is to make space for other leaders, so if insecurity seems to be getting in the way of that, can I encourage you to do business with God about that.

Yemi continued with this:

You must be secure in yourself to embrace, celebrate, and amplify the skill of others, and then be open to learn from them. One of the greatest things of being a leader is to see what is lacking in me and finding those things in leaders around me. And I'm submissive to them to say I would like to learn that about you. I would like to learn all about you.

These are the words of a secure leader. Someone who is happy to celebrate those around him. It’s a beautiful thing. Let me finish this point with a quote from Ralph Nader: ‘The function of leaders is to produce more leaders, not more followers’.

4.Leaders delegate authority and responsibility

Yemi identified this issue that leaders are confronted by:

Some churches and businesses when they get to a particular level, stop growing. When we get to a particular level, you need to ask yourself, why has growing stalled, and the answer is very simple, you have reached the capacity of yourself of what you can do or what you can be.

The point that Yemi makes is that as leaders we need to give things away. We need to delegate authority and responsibility. Often we can just delegate responsibility and maintain authority ourselves, but new leaders will feel stifled by that. They need space to grow and flex their muscles, they don’t want a to-do list. Move out of the way, give them space and watch them fly.

Without giving new leaders space, we become a bottle neck and it stalls growth, we’ll end up burnt out because we’re doing too much, and those around us will be frustrated because there isn’t opportunity to really lead and grow into things.

Yemi suggests that you give 80% of what you do away to those around you. The proportion isn’t necessarily important, the principle though is crucial.

You may have come across the ‘leadership square’. It’s a helpful model that can inform your practise as a leader. See what you make of it and how it might apply in your own context:

1.I Do - You Watch: allow your leaders to watch you.
2.I Do - You Help: allow leaders to take responsibility for part of the task.
3.You Do - I Help: give leaders the opportunity to have a go and be ready to support
4.You Do - I Watch: give leaders authority and responsibility for an area and be on hand to help if they need you. Stand back and watch.

Conclusion

So there are lots of ways you can release leadership in those around you and the above might be helpful to spur some further thinking in your own context.

You can watch the whole of Yemi’s session here.