HBR IdeaCast

Why It’s So Hard to Delegate — and How to Improve

At every stage of leadership, it's important to hand some tasks and even decisions off to team members to foster their development and free up your time for higher level work. But even seasoned bosses often have trouble effectively delegating. Elsbeth Johnson, senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, explains the four main reasons why we struggle -- both internal and external -- and outlines strategies for overcoming them to level up your delegation game. Johnson wrote the HBR article "Why Aren’t I Better at Delegating?"