Matt "Lument" is a guild leader of more than 3 years and founder of Officerchat.org, a blog dedicated to sharing guild leadership advice and experience.
Managing and leading are a little different. Managing can be defined in many ways including: to take charge of, to dominate, to handle/direct/govern. Everyone manages at some level, whether personal or across a team, and an easy way to visualize managing is juggling: you are managing the timing, position, and coordination of 3 things simultaneously. Leading on the other hand can be defined as: to go before, to show the way, to guide. Not everyone leads (not a bad thing), and is both being a good manager and having a direction/goal to direct people toward. The difference between the two is primarily the day to day actions. Two common cliches are "lead by example” and "good managers delegate.” Delegation is a very important facet for both managing and leading.
One person can’t do everything.
If you want to succeed and grow, you’ve got to share the weight of responsibilities. Delegating is sharing that load. Don’t kid yourself--you can’t do it all and remain in a healthy state for any long period of time. You might be able to do it all for a week, maybe a month, maybe 3 or 6 months, and you will eventually burn out. Further still, if there is only one brain running things, you’re limited the smarts and flow of new ideas and adjustments for improvement and growth. If you’re already delegating responsibilities, good! The following will be good reminders or even new ideas on how to better delegate. If you aren’t delegating, it is time to shed some weight from your shoulders.
- Delegate responsibility to someone you trust: Your level of trust in someone should match the level of the responsibility given to them. A great example relating to guilds is recruiting. When you delegate the responsibility of recruiting to someone, you may to trust that person to fully scrutinize applications and applicants. You also need to be able to trust them to follow up with applicants in a timely manner.
- Always give them authority: If you gave someone the responsibility to move bricks from one location to another but tied their hands behind their back, they wouldn’t be able to fulfill their responsibility. This is true of every delegated responsibility--empower the person with the authority necessary to do their job. Don’t make it so that they have to come to you for every decision. This is why it is important you chose someone you trust. The decision someone else makes may be different than your own and that doesn’t make that decision wrong. This may be something a little as the necessary permissions on your guild’s website or higher access to your guild’s bank to handle inventory. Authority could also be over others--make sure the others know you have given the person authority.
- Share and communicate information: Virtually every responsibility within a guild should work in harmony with other responsibilities. When different people are sharing these responsibilities, you all need to be on the same page. You achieve this by sharing information through regular communication. This starts from the very moment you delegate a responsibility to someone: communicate to them your expectations, the requirements, how much time you think will be involved, and even anything you’ve learned along the way that might be relevant. Also be sure to inform them of any limits or what they should definitely come to you for advice/input on. Just remember to not tie their hands. As time progresses, this channel of sharing and communication should allow new ideas and ways to improve or adapt.
- Affirm them: Most importantly, let them know you are giving them a responsibility because they are capable of handling it, not just because you need some help or because they are a warm body. This goes back to someone you trust: you couldn’t honestly tell someone this if you don’t trust them. People want to feel good about themselves and that means feeling valued. Being told that you know they can handle the responsibility achieves that because you are giving them respect. In return, you will have their respect.
