The Leadership Line

Monkey Business: The Art of Avoiding Reverse Delegation

• Tammy Rogers and Scott Burgmeyer • Season 6 • Episode 15

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Reverse delegation might be silently sabotaging your leadership effectiveness and your team's growth. In this eye-opening conversation, Scott and Tammy tackle the widespread phenomenon where well-intentioned leaders find themselves taking back work they've delegated to their team members.

The hosts unpack how many of us unwittingly create this dynamic through a fundamental misunderstanding of servant leadership. "No, you're not being a servant leader. You're being a bonehead," Scott remarks in his characteristically direct style, highlighting how taking on your employees' responsibilities actually disables rather than enables them. This conversation exposes the warning signs that you're carrying too many of your team's "monkeys" – from working longer hours than your staff to constantly justifying why you should handle tasks yourself.

Drawing on the classic Harvard Business Review concept of "management monkeys," Tammy provides practical strategies for breaking this cycle without sacrificing deadlines or team morale. The discussion explores the delicate balance between supporting your team and creating unhealthy dependencies, offering insights into when stepping in is appropriate and when it undermines growth. You'll learn powerful questioning techniques to help your team think more deeply rather than simply providing solutions.

Are you creating a firefighting environment by rescuing your team at the last minute? Do you find yourself playing the "Uno reverse card" game with tasks that should remain with your employees? This frank, practical conversation will transform how you think about delegation and employee development. Listen now to become the leader who truly enables others rather than unconsciously disabling them.

Questions or topic suggestions? Let us know! podcast@becomemoregp.com   

Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/becomemoregp   

Connect with Us:   

Tammy K Rogers: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tammerarogers
Scott Burgmeyer:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/burgy
Producer Karman Hotchkiss: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karman-hotchkiss/   

Other Resources:  http://www.becomemoregp.com 

Karman:

Good morning Scott and Tammy. Good morning Carmen. How are you? I am good, although it is dark here.

Tammy:

At this time of day. It is dark here. We should still be in bed.

Scott:

Good morning. It's always dark where I am.

Tammy:

That's true. It's the thing that just, it's the little dark cloud that follows you everywhere you go. Scott Bergmeier, Someone told me yesterday that they enjoyed your dark humor. Just wanted you to know.

Scott:

Oh, that's good. One in a million. Why? The squirrel finds a nut?

Karman:

I mean, I'm going to add that to my list of Scott Bergmeier t-shirt ideas. It's always dark where I am.

Tammy:

It's always dark wherever Scott Bergmeier is. Maybe there's, maybe there'll be a whole thing that people start saying I want to be dark like Scott Bergmeier Instead of be like Mike, it'll be like Scott. Oh yeah, there you go. Maybe they'll get bracelets instead of it's. You know what would Jesus do? It's. What would Scott do? Yeah.

Scott:

Well, I'll be blasphemous. It's probably like smarter to do what I would do.

Tammy:

No, you're totally blasphemous and I'm going to like you know, right now I have to shoot that puppy down.

Karman:

Depends on what you want your outcome to be.

Tammy:

Heaven or hell. That is true, Carmen. That is a very good, good observation.

Scott:

That'll be the picture on the T-shirt.

Tammy:

Oh yeah, scott has a picture of himself dressed up for Halloween and he is. Is that Freddy Krueger? Freddy Krueger? Hey, that's pretty good for Tammy, who doesn't even watch these things, but I'm pretty sure that's Freddy Krueger, yeah.

Karman:

Well, I have been having the pleasure of pre-reading your book. Think Do you have a book?

Tammy:

We do have a book, Scott.

Karman:

It might be why I'm getting up at this time of the morning, but it's, and there are some wonderful things in this book, and I wanted to talk this morning about one of the lessons that I took away and one of the many times when I thought I wish that I had known Tammy and Scott when I was in my corporate job, because I'm learning so much and, you know, like it's almost enough to make me want to go back to my corporate job, so there's some things I could do over again.

Tammy:

No, no, you cannot go back to your corporate job. If that's true, we're going to stop writing. You have to stay, Carmen. You must stay.

Scott:

Well, hold on now. That doesn't mean, carmen wouldn't work for us. She just might double dip and she could hire us at her corporate job. I see no downside here.

Tammy:

Okay, I just okay.

Karman:

Sleep is overrated. Yeah, who needs that? You can sleep when you're dead. Stop In my Freddy Krueger outfit, yeah, yeah. So here's the thing that you talk about in the book that I think I was guilty of a lot, and so today I'd like you to talk about reverse delegation, what that is, and is it always bad?

Tammy:

Let's do a Scott. Yes, let's do a Scott.

Scott:

Yes, well it you know, it depends on your perspective. If you're the delegator, it is not always bad the employee the staff.

Tammy:

I mean and okay. So let's kind of talk about reverse delegation. What we're talking about in this case is we've given an employee a task, we've given them something for them to complete, or maybe it's just even part of their normal everyday job and somehow or another Maybe it's just even part of their normal everyday job and somehow or another they end up giving it back to their boss. Now, sometimes they do this in a way that I mean I think oftentimes they don't even recognize that they're doing it. So it's kind of like hey, scott, I don't know how to do this. And then Scott, just because he's being a nice guy or because it's a day where he has a lot of stuff going on and doesn't have, you know, time to explain it, scott just picks it up and says don't worry about it, I'll take care of it. Or he'll tell the person exactly what to do with all the detail you know, and maybe that person will go off and do it. But the fact of the matter is is Scott is still keeping the information in his you know, he knows how to do it, he knows what he's doing it, and he goes in and like make sure that it gets done right.

Tammy:

And there's a great article it's from a very long time ago from Harvard Business Review and it talks about are you taking back the monkeys that your employees are giving you? And that's really what it is. These employees are saying, hey, I have this work to do. Ie a monkey. I don't want to do it, I don't know how to do it. I ask so many questions about it that you know whatever it is. And I'm saying take my monkey.

Tammy:

And it happens, carmen, all the time. And it doesn't surprise me that it happens to you or happened to you, because you are a guardian and as a guardian in your PI profile, you want to help and serve others. Guardians, let me take care of you. And it is a really natural response, especially in today's world, that we have taught our leaders a good leader is one who supports, a good leader is one who cares about. And so we pick up these monkeys when employees and again, they're not being jerks, they just want to be right or want to be perfect or really are a little confused and their bosses pick up the monkeys and take care of it instead of helping the person think through it and learn through the thinking how to do it on their own. So that's what reverse delegation is.

Scott:

I think there's a couple of things we have to also reinforce here. You said, oh, I didn't have time to explain it. No, I chose to not explain it. I didn't take the time to explain it. Right? As a leader, I deprioritize that in that moment. It happens to all of us. I've done it right, We've all done it, and I've probably done it recently. Okay, I think the other thing is this thing about oh, I'm supposed to support. I think of some of the models that are bastardized, Servant leader is the one that I find the most. That is very bastardized from the core of its existence, right? People think, oh well, I'm supposed to serve you. No, that is not what servant leadership is, and you can go Google that or AI or whatever it is about supporting.

Tammy:

Read the book, read the whole book, don't just read the headline right. Don't don't be in that spot where you're just skimming over and people jump to this.

Scott:

Yeah, people jump to this. Well, I'm being a servant leader. No, you're being a bonehead.

Karman:

A pushover.

Scott:

And again, I think that this is there a time and a place to take it over for them. Sure, there, there, likely is, you know, if it's an emergency, if it's something, it's okay. I totally get it. I mean, I'm thinking we were working on a project with one of our team and they're not super skilled at Excel. Now I could have sent them off to go do it and research it and they would have spent hours and hours and hours on it.

Scott:

When it's something, it doesn't need to be their core skill, it doesn't right, it's not super important, I can do it quickly. And so, yeah, in that situation, I am going to make the decision to, like, support them on this. Now, if it was their core skill, or it was something where, like, hey, I do need you to be on your own for this. Now, if it was their core skill, or it was something where, like, hey, I do need you to be on your own for this, yeah, we're going to talk through it, we're going to work through it. They're going to do it like. We're going to approach it very, very differently.

Tammy:

Well, an example for me of that and I'm, you know, I'm going to just take it into an everyday life those of you who have all had children, like the two of you, have had children. You know there are children yes, both of you do Lovely children and you know there are times when, yeah, you took care of your kids, you took when they were little, you changed their diapers, you fed them, you clothed them. There came a time, however, though, that you thought I'm not changing diapers anymore, Okay, and potty training became the thing that you guys had to do, and, like you know, no, I am not going to every day decide what they're going to wear and put their clothes on them. They're going to decide for themselves. I am not going to feed them every day. I am not going to.

Tammy:

There comes a time where every employee needs to be more independent, just like every child goes through all of these stages of independence. We're not talking about doing stuff for an employee when they do need the support. We're talking about what is the employee's responsibility that you, as a leader, end up taking back on your shoulders when they need to be independent in that particular area, Employees have a way of reverse delegating and many leaders have a way of picking it up, and a big part of it is the misunderstanding of servant leadership. The hi, I'm just a nice human being and I am trying to be supportive and kind, which that's the Karmans of the world.

Tammy:

One of the ways that you can see if you're in that spot are you working more than your staff? If you are working longer and harder than your staff, if in your brain you go oh, I can't give that to so-and-so because you know they have kids, or I know this is going to be a tough task, it's going to like take over the weekend. I can't give that to Billy Bob, because and so every time you're saying I'll do it so that you won't give it to them, or anytime somebody pushes back and says I'm overwhelmed, I don't have time, I don't know how to do this, and you put it on you and you're working all the extra hours. That's the sign that you are taking their monkeys on.

Scott:

An element of are you justifying why someone shouldn't do it? Yes, and really looking at it and saying why me, why am I doing this, and is it really my work? It's also an element of maybe they're not prepared to take it today. That is also okay. Then what is your action plan as a leader to prepare them?

Tammy:

And so, again, I think sometimes leaders look at, take it away, keep this individual from thinking things through, figuring things out and being able to move forward and independently contributing. In this way, we, as leaders, should not be doing the thinking for our staff. We, if we have someone that is not independent on this task yet, should be asking questions to help them think it through more deeply to come to good conclusions, and that's the piece where we are also doing a disservice to them. So we've been talking about the disservice to you, right? Hey, you shouldn't take this on. You're the leader. You have other things that you need to do, I get it. And you're doing a disservice to your staff member. You're disabling them when you are not working with them to think things through. And that's what, when, scott, you started this, you're like I didn't, you know, I chose not to take the time in this moment to deepen the opportunity for their thinking and their learning and their growth. And that's, oh that's just the opposite of servant leadership disabling people instead of enabling people.

Scott:

And I think we have to just be real. There are moments where it shits on fire Like we just need to get it done, yep, like right, all of those things. And so we're not saying you're a bad person every moment of every day, right or not an optimal leader. Or to me it is that are you circling back to say what action am I taking to turn the monkey back over, either in that moment or in a follow-up or in a growth and development plan, whether that's formally or informally, that to me, is the place where I think leaders trip. I think in the moment they're likely making many times they're making the right decision Because of just the situation at hand. It's the, it's the secondary place. So I always think about it as if I feel like the reverse delegation is coming and I think of the Uno reverse card right, the employees playing the Uno reverse card.

Scott:

In that moment, your role is to say why me? And is that my job? And if the answer is no, now I have to do a little bit of assessment. I have to do a little bit of assessment, I have to do a little bit of thinking. Okay, I have to say, oh, do they have the skill set to do it. Where are they on the leadership ladder? Can we afford the time in this moment to get this thing done? They could take some time to develop. It's really not due till next week. Hand the monkey back, hey, take, take some time. Why don't you draft it? We'll look at it on Thursday. If it's like no, it's due today and we're not even going to talk about did they wait to the last minute? Let's just not even worry about that part of the conversation. It might be I need to take it on in this moment, and how am I going to circle back?

Tammy:

Or what I've done many, many times is all right, I do have to take it on in this moment and they are going to sit here and we're going to do it together.

Scott:

At least there's some learning going on in that space, right, Because what happens is oh yeah, I'll take care of it, and then they go off on their merry way. No, let's, hey, let's. You know what? I can't do it right now. One of my favorite tactics is I can't do it right now, but I have time at 4.30 this afternoon. Let's work on it together then.

Tammy:

Scott, this is when your dark cloud evilness comes out.

Scott:

But you know there's a reality. There's a reality that you know. You have to look and say should they get off the hook for this?

Tammy:

Yes, I agree with you.

Tammy:

And the other piece. So, scott, what you just said is 100% valid and, if I may add to it for just a minute as a leader, if you never, it's like all of these conversations are coming to the last second Okay, so that you now have to quote unquote take the monkey, because results are so important, output is so important and we don't have any other options due to time. You have another issue and we should talk about that in another podcast, but that's another thing. If they're coming to you and giving you the monkey and it is at the last moment, okay, there is something else that's going on there and you, as a leader, need to recognize that. You've created a firefighting environment, and when you have firefighting and then you praise heroics, woo-hoo, we got it done at the last minute. You end up with an environment that that's what we do and everybody likes being a firefighter, and you live in this constant reactivity. So that's another hint that something else is going wrong later, okay, and so we can talk about that another time. But I love the fact that you brought it up. And, yeah, you're right.

Tammy:

Reality is we're going to get the work done. Okay, and yeah, you're right. Reality is we're going to get the work done. Okay, any good boss is going to ensure we hit those deadlines, we meet the metrics, we take care of the customer. We're not going to punish quote, unquote the employee and we're not going to punish the end user, the person who's going to be receiving this work, by not meeting those deadlines because we didn't get it done on time. We'll probably step in and get it done and circle back. How are you going to come around the cul-de-sac and come right back to it and help them continue to learn and grow? So this is not the norm.