Last week, we talked about how to delegate better with your team. But what if you were thinking, “wow, wish my manager was reading this instead”?

Today will be our first look at managing up: how to get your boss to delegate the right kind of work to help you grow.

🤔 Recap: why you should want your manager to delegate.

Good delegation isn’t when your manager decides they’re too lazy to do something and tries to offload it – it’s about them actively challenging their team with projects or tasks that are a bit beyond their current capabilities or experience.

If the right projects are getting delegated to you, you should be able to tell because you’ll feel a little uncomfortable – it won’t always be easy to know if you’re on the right track. But with the right feedback and opportunity, this is really how you get to grow your skills quickly.

🤷‍♀️ How do I get my manager to be better at delegating to me?

A lot of managers are told to delegate, delegate, delegate – but they either don’t do it, or delegate the really boring stuff. In these cases, you’ll need to take charge of helping them help you.

😬 What to do if your manager doesn’t want to delegate work.

Many managers, even though they’re told to delegate, simply don’t do it. First thing you’ll need to do is figure out why that is:

• Are they trying to protect you from taking on more work?

• Do they not know how or what to delegate?

• Do they think that they can do everything better themselves, and therefore don’t want to delegate?

If you’re able to identify the root cause, you’ll be able to tailor your approach more effectively. Some ways you can use to convince your boss to delegate to you:

• Let them know that you’re interested in working on some stretch projects and ask if they have anything that you could help out with.

• If you know of a project you want to support with, you can suggest particular parts you’d like to do. Phrase it as a multiple choice question (eg. “would you like me to do the introduction or the conclusion?”) so that it’s easier for them to choose rather than just defaulting to a no.

• Manage up by proposing your own timeline and milestones to reassure them that the work won’t get done without their approval.

🌱 What to do if your manager isn’t delegating the right kind of work.

If your manager is willing to delegate but is only sharing the boring stuff, there are a couple of tactics you can use to ask for something more challenging.

If you’re comfortable with being direct, you can simply say something like:

More passive ways to start if you’re nervous could include:

• Referencing the company’s career ladder and asking for things you could try in specific areas.

• Asking to see what your manager has been working on lately, and then offering to help out.

• Offering to “pair” on a project your manager is working on (ie. you watch them work and ask them questions during the process).

😱 What to do if your manager doesn’t support you properly with delegated work.

Many managers will naturally fall into an extreme end of the support spectrum with delegation – either they’re checking in all the time, or they completely abandon you until the end of the project.

👀 The micromanager

Assuming your manager isn’t always a micromanager, this is probably a sign that they’re nervous about progress or just trying a bit too hard. In this instance, you’ll need to reassure them:

• Let them know you’ll come to them if you have questions, or organise a milestone check-in if they aren’t already set them up.

• Thank them for their concern, but tell them that you need a bit of space to work through the problem on your own first.

If they keep persisting after this, you’ll need to be a lot more direct and tell them that the constant check-ins are hindering your progress.

👋 The abandoner

If your manager gives you projects and then seemingly forgets about you, you’ll need to organise your own check-ins and lead them. Meetings are probably most effective with this type of manager rather than a Slack or email update, so set them up for when you need them.

If your manager also isn’t fantastic at giving you clear feedback, zero in on the parts of your project that you are most unsure about and ask questions about that instead.

That’s it for our mini-series on delegation for now. Is there anything else you struggle with when delegating – or getting delegated to? Reply to this email if there’s anything you want me to cover in the future. ✨