Robert Glazer is the founder and CEO of Acceleration Partners, a global partner marketing agency and the recipient of numerous industry and company culture awards. He is the author of the inspirational newsletter Friday Forward and international bestselling author of four books: Elevate, Friday Forward, How To Thrive In The Virtual Workplace and Performance Partnerships. He is also the host of The Elevate Podcast.

Recently, I spoke to a group of new managers at our company about the crucial lessons I’ve learned in my own leadership journey. At the top of the list was learning to delegate. 

I still remember how, in the early years of the business, I was in charge of nearly every function and struggled to let go. It was exhausting. 

I have seen this same theme crop up repeatedly at our company: virtually all our new managers struggle with delegation. Intuitively, this makes sense; before becoming a manager, an employee works as an individual contributor and is rewarded for being a reliable, trustworthy and productive team member

For managers, however, success is much less about the work they do and more about the performance of their team. Great managers lead others to do great work, rather than doing everything themselves.