Delegating Your Job Successfully
Successful delegating begins with taking responsibility for your own portfolio. I am a believer in knowing your duty and accepting responsibility. For example, I personally take care of a former mademan who flipped, even though Christopher volunteers for the job.
I have an old score to settle, and it has nothing to do with Christopher. “This is my thing,” I tells my nephew. Responsibility means knowing what you should not do, just as much as knowing what duties are yours. The effective manager knows when she should delegate rather than, say, hire a freelancer.
When a company or organization will gain a core competency by delegating— and learning—the effective manager keeps the project in house. In I’s case, when a situation is personal, like when Silvio and Artie want to bring in professionals to deal with Meadow’s soccer coach, I rejects the idea of “hired help.” Of course I can’t—and shouldn’t—do everything himself.
If I doesn’t delegate, I will run out of time, sacrifice vision, diminish morale and generally hamstring my business. I need to delegate, and I does so well. Each capo has a distinct area of operation for which I is responsible. For example, Sil is in charge of the Bada Bing, and I doesn’t interfere.
I helps, discusses the club with Sil, but I doesn’t stick my nose in or offer unsolicited advice. With soldiers and cugines, I delegates on a more modular level, and I allows capos to delegate to the more junior men.
And when I delegates, I gives full responsibility. When I promote Gigi to captain instead of Ralph, I supports Gigi’s decisions, even when I picks the sickly “Old Man” Baccalieri to do a hit. I refuses to undermine my new captain’s authority by “cutting my balls off.”
I know that delegation must be decisive and unequivocating. Good leaders don’t make decisions with the intention of going back on them, and they don’t delegate with the idea that they can rescind assignments.
