Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and golachieving. This
Speaker 1: is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host Paul Fellovledo.
Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 1: It's episode six point twenty. Today we're talking about a
Speaker 1: decision every leader wrestles with, whether they admit it or not.
Speaker 1: When do you automate and when do you delegate? This
Speaker 1: question sounds technical, but it is deeply human. Get it
Speaker 1: right and you buy back time, trust and momentum. Get
Speaker 1: it wrong and you quietly break your culture while wondering
Speaker 1: why everything feels harder than it should. So let me
Speaker 1: start with a picture that you have probably lived your
Speaker 1: buried emails or stacking up small tasks pulling at you
Speaker 1: from every direction, and you start thinking, I should automate
Speaker 1: this or I should hand this off. And that's where
Speaker 1: leaders mess this up. Because automation and delegation solve very
Speaker 1: different problems. Automation is about consistency, delegation is about growth.
Speaker 1: If you confuse the two, you end up with frustrated
Speaker 1: people in broken systems. So let's break this down in
Speaker 1: real terms. Automation is for tasks that should never depend
Speaker 1: on mood, personality, or creativity. Things that should happen the
Speaker 1: same way every time. Scheduling, reminders, payroll processing, data backups,
Speaker 1: intake forms, status reports, anything where variation creates risk. If
Speaker 1: the task needs judgment, nuance, or relationship, automation will failue.
Speaker 1: Leaders who try to automate human judgment end up sounding cold, robotic,
Speaker 1: and out of touch. Now, delegation. Delegation is not dumping
Speaker 1: work onto people. Delegation is trust with structure. It's saying
Speaker 1: I believe you can carry this, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: support you while you do it. And here's the leadership
Speaker 1: mistake I see constantly. Leaders automate because they do not
Speaker 1: trust their people yet, or leaders refuse to delegate because
Speaker 1: they trust no system but themselves. Both come from the
Speaker 1: same place control. If you are automating something because you
Speaker 1: do not want to coach someone through it, that's a
Speaker 1: red flag. If you're holding onto tasks because you think
Speaker 1: nobody can do it like you, that is also a
Speaker 1: red flag. And let me give you a simple test.
Speaker 1: Ask yourself this question. If this task goes wrong, do
Speaker 1: I need human judgment to fix it quickly? If the
Speaker 1: answer is yes, delegate it. If the answer is no, automated.
Speaker 1: And here's another one. Does this task help someone grow,
Speaker 1: learn or build confidence? If yes, delegate. If no, automated
Speaker 1: automation removes friction. Delegation builds leaders. They are not interchangeable.
Speaker 1: Here's another story. I once watched a leader automate a
Speaker 1: weekly check in email to their team, same message, same tone,
Speaker 1: same time every week. It looked efficient, it felt modern,
Speaker 1: and it completely failed. Why because the team didn't need information,
Speaker 1: They needed connection. They needed to know they were seen.
Speaker 1: Automation gave them a message leadership would have given them meaning.
Speaker 1: Now flip that around. I've seen leaders personally approve things
Speaker 1: that should have been admated years ago. Expense reports, schedule swaps,
Speaker 1: routine approvals. They called it being involved. The team experienced
Speaker 1: it as a bottleneck. That's not leadership, that's self inflicted chaos.
Speaker 1: And here's the leadership sweet spot. Automate the predictable, delegate
Speaker 1: the developmental. If the task exists to move information, automate it.
Speaker 1: If the task exists to build people, delegate it. Now,
Speaker 1: let's make this actionable. Here's a quick audit that you
Speaker 1: can do this week. Make a list of everything that
Speaker 1: pulls at your time in a normal week. Emails, approvals, meetings,
Speaker 1: follow ups, reports, that sort of thing next to each
Speaker 1: item right A or D. A means this should be automated.
Speaker 1: D means this should be delegated. And be honest, not comfortable.
Speaker 1: Be honest. Then ask yourself one more question, why have
Speaker 1: I not done this yet? The answer will tell you
Speaker 1: more about your leadership than the task ever could. Fear
Speaker 1: of losing control, fear of mistakes, fear of being replaceable,
Speaker 1: fear of slowing things down. Those fears quietly cap leaders.
Speaker 1: Strong leaders build systems and people at the same time.
Speaker 1: Automation frees your time. Delegation multiplies your impact. If you
Speaker 1: automate everything, you end up alone. If you delegate everything
Speaker 1: without systems, you end up exhausted. Leadership lives in that balance.
Speaker 1: So here's your takeaway for this episode. Stop asking what
Speaker 1: is faster for me, Start asking what is better for
Speaker 1: the team and for the future. Automate what must be consistent,
Speaker 1: delegate What must be learned that this decision made repeatedly
Speaker 1: over time, is the difference between a busy leader and
Speaker 1: a scalable one. This has been the seven minute Leadership Podcast,
Speaker 1: and I thank you for listening. For more Paul fell
Speaker 1: of Alito podcasts, visit paulfellowalito dot com