Giving people power means offering both the authority and the responsibility. The authority part is empowerment. Responsibility you provide through delegation. This is more difficult in many ways because it is in delegation that you actually release your grip on what needs to be done. With empowerment, you face the theory of change; delegation commits you.

Conditions for Delegation

Although both empowerment and delegation are fundamental to power-sharing, the two have an important difference. Empowerment, as an embodiment of authority, is more general in nature. When people are empowered, they are entrusted with the ability to do something. However, that isn't the same as having something to do.

That's where delegation comes in. When a leader delegates, the other team members shoulder part of the leader's responsibility as a way of helping achieve the team's goals. Because delegation is more specific, it requires a more specific set of steps:

• Matching the right people with the right tasks

• Creating oversight and metrics

• Marshalling adequate resources

By taking these steps for each team member, you set the foundation for sharing power in such a way that you more efficiently approach goals.

Match People and Tasks

This step relates to building a team. You need the right person for the right role. That said, right is a relative term. You might choose to have people do what they are already good at, or you could ask them to take on something new, broadening their experiences and developing the ability to have various team members cover the same responsibility. Consider what other responsibilities team members have before recruiting them for additional ones. Also, keep in mind how specific team members work together and who would come in contact with whom.

Create Oversight

If one of the factors driving people to hoard power is the concern that important things won't get done, oversight is the answer. You don't need to micromanage people. What you must do is set up a way of tracking what should happen and when it should happen. A master schedule is a must. There are only so many details the average human mind can juggle without help, and the total is generally in the single digits.

Don't plan out every small step of the way. Focus on milestones where you can actually see the results of progress. If you try for too much oversight, you'll end up with a distorted myopic view and make other team members feel as though they have neither authority nor responsibility.

The milestones should represent natural metrics that let you monitor progress. Again, don't get too fancy. Think of high-level indications of whether all is right with the world. For example, if you're fundraising, then you might watch the number of contacts the team makes with potential donors.

You may be tempted to focus exclusively on the end results your team wants, but that would be a mistake. With fundraising, it's important to know where your team stands in terms of the money it wants to raise. You don't control the generosity of the donors or even whether they are in to take a call. Where you do have control is in the number and quality of your collective efforts to find donors.

Marshall Resources

When you do everything for yourself, you can pull in the resources under your control as you need them. But when you delegate, everything you'd normally have on tap must be shared with your team members. As carefully as you monitor progress on the various delegated tasks, you must be even more diligent in ensuring all team members have what they need to accomplish their tasks.