The Myth of “Just Delegate”

“Just delegate.”

It is one of the most common pieces of advice when you feel overwhelmed. It sounds simple: pass a task along and free up your time. The unspoken message is that the problem is not the workload; it is your reluctance to let go. In real life, delegation is rarely that straightforward.

Delegation is not offloading. It is choosing the right person, giving the right context, and agreeing the right outcome. It takes time, judgment, and trust. Done well, it creates space. Done hurriedly, it creates new work.

Years ago I was asked to help another department because their administrator was overloaded. I arrived ready to make a dent. The day passed with almost nothing to do. I was given a letter to photocopy and the odd message to fax, but nothing that would touch the real backlog. Most of the time I sat while she told me how swamped she was. She looked exhausted; I believed her. Whether it was stress, habit, or fear of seeming weak, she could not let go. Nothing shifted, and my own work was piling up. It was a clear lesson: if the handover never really happens, delegation is only a story we tell ourselves.

Where “just delegate” breaks down is almost always the same place. The outcome is vague, the authority is unclear, or the person asked to help has no access to what they need. Without those pieces, you end up fielding questions, correcting guesses, or quietly taking the task back. The pressure does not lift; it moves.

There is also the part no one mentions. Letting go has an emotional cost. You worry it will look like a lack of commitment. You fear no one else will care enough. You feel guilty passing work on when everyone is already stretched. So you hold on. You do a little more and then a little more, and delegation becomes the thing you promise yourself you will do once the storm has passed.

For small business owners, this shows up in a very practical way. You are pulled away from the work that makes the business viable because you are drowning in admin: the inbox, invoices, scheduling, paperwork that never ends. You tell yourself it will be quicker to do it yourself, or that no one will care as much as you do, so you keep holding it. Meanwhile your core work starves. A good VA will not fix everything, but with a clear outcome, access to tools, and a short check-in, they can take whole categories of tasks off your plate so you can get back to the work only you can do.

Whether you hand work to a VA, a colleague, the mechanics are the same. Delegation works when you say what finished looks like, when you give the person the tools and permission to do it, and when you agree one or two moments to check in before things drift. It fails when you hand someone a task but keep the responsibility curled tightly in your fist.

Sometimes delegation is not the answer. Sometimes the task truly belongs where it is, or the process needs redesign rather than redistribution. Sometimes there is no capacity to take it on elsewhere. In those moments, the honest conversation is about priorities: what stops, what waits, what matters most. Pushing a job sideways without that conversation only transfers the strain.

Delegation can be powerful. It respects your limits and grows other people’s confidence. It is not a magic fix, and it is not a test of loyalty. It is a skill. Learn it openly. Use it deliberately. And notice how much quieter your workload becomes when you hand things over with real clarity, not hope.

If your admin is stealing time from the work that pays the bills, I can help. I am an experienced administrator and VA. I set up simple systems, take recurring tasks off your plate, and give you hours back every week. Book a free discovery call and we will map what to hand over first: https://zcal.co/jangoulding