Delegation: What happens in women’s brains that makes it so hard to do
You’re in a demanding job, and you know that working more hours isn’t enough to grow the business. It’s clear that at some point you’ll have to hand things off. You intuitively know this, but it’s hard to let go, especially for women.
To point to a solution, at least one study gets at how this plays out, and the reasons are more nuanced and more deeply rooted than I thought.
We value leaders who are assertive and decisive, and yet because women have been socialized to quietly get things done, a woman who exhibits these leadership qualities (researchers call it being “agentic”), is a bad woman.
Unfortunately, female assertiveness is viewed by both men and women as negative. Researchers call it “gender-role incongruence,” which means an assertive woman is mis-aligned with gender expectations.
According to the experts: “. . . the gender-role paradoxical nature of delegation will lead women, compared to men, to associate delegation with more negative emotions, being more sensitive to punishment that can ensue from engaging in gender-role incongruent behavior.”
Said more simply, we want to be liked and we don’t want to make demands. We fear things will fall through the cracks, and we under-delegate. It’s exhausting – and spectacularly unproductive.
It gets even worse. It’s not just that women delegate less. To avoid acting being “agentic,” we communicate less with subordinates when assigning tasks, leaving our teams feeling unsupported.
How can you recognize when your mindset is working against you?
The next time you have an opportunity to delegate, you probably won’t say to yourself “Hmm. I’m being gender-role incongruent.” The phenomenon is subtler and sneakier. Here are some thoughts I hear where fear of assertiveness may be lurking:
I need to support my team. I don’t want to overwhelm them.
When you hand something off, you have no way to know for sure how others will react. Fearing a negative reaction is an implied apology for asking your team to step up, which means you may be less clear and far less engaged in supporting them.
What if it’s okay if your team is inconvenienced, or if they disagree? The key is to avoid assumptions and to welcome open communications when things get to be too much.
My manager is always asking for something and I need to be sure it’s done right.
It’s important to learn to say no, even to someone who has perceived authority.
The gender role trap helps explain wanting to be involved in everything longer than you probably should be. Of course you need to remain visible. But that’s not the same thing as doing all of the work yourself.
We’re talking about delegation, not abdication.
Will things be done as well as if you were to do it yourself? Probably not. At least not at first. But if something goes wrong, you can usually remedy mistakes, and it’s worth the risk to find out who’s up for a challenge.
What can you do?
First, let’s be careful not to blame women. Instead, women’s socialization is at the root, and we all can be part of the solution.
Second, start paying attention to times when you worry about what others think, or you’re convinced you have to deal with every crisis. You may be falling into the gender role trap.
Third, reframe. Rather than thinking of delegation as assertive, what if it’s the ultimate act of communality, allowing others to participate in the growth of the organization, and in their own development?
Note that men don’t typically need to make this adjustment because they don’t associate delegation with a lack of collaboration. “Male leaders,” researchers say “are often free to exercise their agency without the constraint of simultaneously needing to engender communality.” Assertive men don’t see themselves as acting badly.