This is why delegation is so hard (and how you can fix it)

This is why rechtevergabe is so hard (and how you can fix it)This is why delegation is so hard (and how you can fix it)People typically like to do things themselves. We all have a tendency to be overly confident in our abilities.I think that Im a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And Ill tell you right now that Im gonna think Im a better political director than my political director.It wasnt Trump who said this. It was Obamaas reported in The New Yorkerin November 2008.That confidence is what leads many people to delegate - but notlage completely.Ive seen plenty of managers who delegate tasks, such as creating presentations or reports, only to wind up redoing the entire thing. They feel compelled to carefully edit the report line by line or run through the presentation before its given.In that case, they havent actually saved themselves any time.Thats why every good leader has to learn the art of d elegation. The secret? Delegation is only tough when you havent hired the right people. If your kollektiv excels at their jobs, then all you have to do is choose the best person to make the decisions for each task.Heres how to go about itDelegation starts with hiring the right peopleThe first - and most important - step is finding and hiring people whose judgment you trust. Thats the only way youll be able to hand off projects with confidence.Since youre likely not the expert in every department at your company, its important to use the right proxies to evaluate the skills and competence of potential employees.Ill give you an example of how Ive done this as CEO. When Morphic Therapeutic first started, we were trying to hire a chief scientific officer, specifically, a chemist. I was sitting down with our VP of Finance when our recruiter told us she was sending us a resume to look over. We glanced at each other, and I said, Why would you send this to us? Neither of us knows anything about chemistry. Just send it to our Head of Chemistry. He can do the initial screening.The recruiter told me that at many companies, the CEO is expected to screen potential hires first. But that only makes sense if the CEO knows exactly how to evaluate them. In the situation above, I didnt have the chemistry expertise. So I delegated that responsibility to the person who could actually do it.But if youve hired several people, and youre still somehow the best person at every job, youve got a problem. It means youre delegating tasks to the wrong people, or you did a poor job hiring.Once you have the best people, delegation comes easyI gave a talk recently, and during the QA, someone asked me, Whats something your team achieved that you didnt think theyd achieve? And why do you think that happened?My answer related directly to delegation. When creating our series A presentation, our team put together a timeline for when we would move from drug discovery to drug development. I told ev eryone not to be reckless or conservative but to use their best judgment. To be honest, I didnt think we were going to meet the timeline we proposed, mainly because something unforeseen often occurs.We ended up hitting it. And I think that happened in part because our Chief Scientific Officer, Bruce Rogers, was free to do his job and lead his team. Theoretically, I could have asked him to send me updates each week, describing everything he was doing and changes he was making. I could have constantly offered my input on each piece of information.Instead, he ran the team and made his own decisions. I wasnt checked out of the process by any means, but simply put, my insight wasnt as valuable in that situation.When it comes down to it, you cant task your team with constant explanations. You have to trust youve hired the right person, so you can feel confident in their judgement and let them do their jobs. And that confidence will be rewarded when your team hits their goals again and aga in.But you have to know your strengths and weaknessesI am something of your prototypical nerd. From second grade on, I was reading Popular Science and Popular Mechanics. Then, on to Scientific American in high school and to Science and Nature in college, learning all I could about science and technology. But I never deeply understood chemistry. Thats why I always hold chemists in high regard.And yet, here I am. Running a company founded on a chemistry basis.Ive even joked that the best thing about moving from drug discovery to development is that I can start to understand what it is we actually do.Thats obviously a bit of a stretch, but the truth is, there are plenty of areas where my input does not have the same value as other peoples. Thats fine. I can let them make those decisions on their own because I trust their judgment.And thats what delegation is all about. The people in the room who have the most experience and knowledge on a certain subject should be making the decisions about it. If youve hired well, it shouldnt be difficult to step back and let processes happen naturally.This article originally appeared on Quora.com.