Delegation for Sustainable Leadership

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In today’s episode, I wanna talk about how you can delegate better as a principal. That’s all coming up next, right here on The Principal’s Handbook. Stay tuned.

Welcome to The Principal’s Handbook, your go-to resource for principals looking to revamp their leadership approach and prioritize self-care. I’m Barb Flowers, a certified life coach with eight years of experience as an elementary principal. Tune in each week as we delve into strategies for boosting mental resilience, managing time effectively, and nurturing overall wellness.

From tackling daily challenges to maintaining a healthy work-life balance, we’ll navigate the complexities of school leadership together. Join me in fostering your sense of purpose as a principal and reigniting your passion for the job. Welcome to a podcast where your wellbeing is the top priority.

Welcome back to the podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about how to delegate better as a principal. I love talking about delegation, and I was really surprised when I went back and looked at my podcast episodes that I don’t have one yet on delegation.

I think this is such an important topic, and I talk about it a lot. It’s a big part of my 8 to 4 Principal Blueprint, and really, delegation is probably the biggest key to my time management and being so successful with working eight to four as a principal.

This is going to be a great conversation. We will talk about the benefits of delegation, common mistakes I see principals make, some ways I delegated in my own building, and a takeaway for you to try now. So let’s dive in.

Benefits of Delegation

The first benefit is that it really increases your productivity. I was super productive because I delegated. I had an assistant principal—not everybody does—but I was able to delegate to my assistant, secretaries, counselor, playground monitors with extra time, teachers—really anybody I could.

I did this in a building where I had two secretaries, an assistant, and a counselor. However, I didn’t have an assistant every day of the week, and my counselor was shared between two buildings. I also taught in a very small school where it was just the principal and one secretary, and he delegated heavily to teachers. So I learned a lot from that principal about delegation.

When I was an assistant principal, my principal was great at delegating—that’s how she got so much done. If you focus on delegating, you can focus on high-priority leadership responsibilities because the more you give away administrative tasks or things someone else can do, the more you can focus on the bigger picture.

Delegation takes away a lot of stress and frees your mind to be more strategic and think big picture. The principal I worked with always said, “My job is to think big picture.” If you’re focused on all the little details, it’s really hard to do that.

Delegation also benefits leadership development. When I was a teacher, my principal delegated to me a lot. This was how I developed as a leader—it was my internship. He empowered me, showed trust, and helped me learn a lot.

As a principal, I did the same, helping teachers build leadership skills, even if they didn’t want to be principals. I helped teacher leaders grow so they could influence others positively and maybe become department heads.

Sometimes it’s about developing content-area leaders, like a passionate math teacher who I helped grow as a math instructional leader or coach. Think about strengths and how you can develop those as leaders. When people have growth goals, they stay engaged in learning and their job. When growth stops, engagement suffers.

Another benefit is building trust and collaboration. Delegation builds trust—you’re showing you trust people to do the work without micromanaging.

I’m a huge fan of collaboration. I modeled collaboration with teachers and fellow principals. Collaborating made me a better teacher and leader, and I wanted to model that for staff. This builds a culture of trust and strong team dynamics where teams can handle tasks without needing you to micromanage every detail.

Finally, delegation promotes sustainable leadership. The more you delegate, the more you prevent burnout. Trying to do everything wears you out. Sharing the workload sustains your energy and leadership effectiveness over time.

This supports a healthier work-life balance. I talk a lot about the 8 to 4 principle—being able to leave work at your contracted time. If you’re staying late every day because you can’t finish during the day, it affects your relationships, wellbeing, and makes the job unsustainable.

Common Mistakes Principals Make with Delegation

1. Micromanaging
This is so common. When you delegate, you have to show trust. Give guidance but avoid micromanaging. Otherwise, you might as well do the task yourself.

When I was a new assistant principal, I didn’t realize how much I didn’t know. My principal helped me by modeling how to have conversations with parents, discipline effectively, and communicate with students and teachers.

After about a month, she could delegate and trust I’d handle it in a way she approved of. You can model the tasks you want done and give enough guidance without stripping control or ownership.

2. Choosing the wrong people
Delegation works best when tasks align with people’s strengths.

For example, one of my secretaries loved taking pictures and crafting, so I gave her tasks that let her shine, including leading the spirit committee.

My other secretary was very organized and great at event planning, so I gave her authority to manage upcoming events without micromanaging.

With teachers, delegate based on passions and strengths. I had a teacher who loved PBIS and made him our PBIS chair.

3. Not utilizing secretaries enough
Many principals I mentor spend time on administrative tasks that secretaries could handle.

For example, we created yearbooks using recess monitors, not me.

Use secretaries for tasks that don’t require your leadership so you can focus on big-picture work.

4. Not wanting to burden others
Some principals avoid delegating because they don’t want to burden others.

I did this as a new principal and learned people disliked it—they felt disempowered.

For example, I took on tasks my secretary usually handled because it was quicker, but this reduced her role and authority.

Also, I did half the work for department heads thinking I was helping them, but one told me, “I chose this role, I want to lead. You’re taking my job away.”

That conversation helped me realize I needed to trust and empower others rather than over-help.

Examples of Delegation in My Building

• When my assistant principal wasn’t there, I had a teacher leader or someone with an admin license step up to handle behaviors and document incidents.

• Teachers led professional development in their passionate areas like math, literacy, and PBIS, which helped staff and built their leadership capacity.

• I empowered teachers to support new teachers, helping them feel welcomed and supported.

• I delegated through the building leadership team and shared instructional leadership with coaches, even though instructional leadership was a strength of mine.

• Teachers managed before- and after-school duty schedules.

Takeaway for You

Even if it’s summer and no teachers are in the building, start identifying one administrative task you’re handling alone that could be delegated to office staff or secretaries.

Think: organizing schedules, communications, newsletters (one secretary loved photography and created our newsletter; I just edited and added my section).

Sit down with your secretaries, outline the task, provide resources, and set clear expectations for how it should be done.

Take that small step to start delegating—it will show you it’s not so hard and help you find other tasks to delegate.

Use quiet months to train office staff on tasks to take off your plate.

If you want to learn more about delegation, it’s covered deeply in the 8 to 4 Principal Blueprint, where I teach how to delegate to work efficiently during the day and free up time outside of school.

If you love this show, please leave a review in your podcast app. Remember, you have the power to shape your life according to the mindset you choose.

I hope you have a great week, and I’ll see you back here next time.