"You've been promoted to a new leadership level with greater scope and responsibility than ever before, including a larger team and expectations to set the vision and strategy. Within months, your boss says, "You need to delegate more. Stop doing all the technical work yourself." You agree and really want to delegate more. But six months later, you're working most nights and weekends, still doing work from your old role while also doing your new leadership work."
"You've become the bottleneck for all initiatives. Your team has become increasingly frustrated waiting for your reviews and approvals of the work. And your boss repeats the feedback at your mid-year review: "You're still operating like an individual contributor instead of a higher-level leader who can delegate." You check in with your mentor, your coach, your best friend, your partner, your peers: Everyone offers the same advice: Just delegate. Just let go."
Women promoted into larger leadership roles are often told to delegate more yet continue carrying legacy technical responsibilities, creating long hours and organizational bottlenecks. Teams grow frustrated waiting for reviews while supervisors criticize lack of delegation. Simple advice to delegate overlooks gendered socialization and competing expectations that reframe collaborative, responsive, and emotionally laboring behaviors as liabilities like indecisiveness or insufficient strategic focus. Identifying these double binds and adopting a systems perspective leads to more effective leadership development. Organizational leaders can design thoughtful onboarding and transition plans that acknowledge role shifts and redistribute responsibilities appropriately.
Read at Psychology Today
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