A note before we begin
If your default thought when someone asks for help is "it is faster if I just do it myself," this issue is for you.
You do not have a time problem. You have a control problem. I had it for years. This is what finally moved me.
The one-person traffic jam
Early in my time as a lead, I became the bottleneck for everything. Protocol reviews came to me. Workflow edits. Scheduling decisions. Quality metrics. Equipment evaluations. Resident reviews. Vendor discussions. All of it flowed through a single point. Me..
I told myself I was being thorough. I told myself my involvement ensured quality. What I was actually being was a one-person traffic jam.
The work I was holding onto was not work I was uniquely positioned to do. Protocol reviews? A well-trained junior faculty could handle ninety percent of them. Scheduling? An experienced coordinator had better insight into daily workflow than I did.
The work I was uniquely positioned to do, the strategic vision for our section, the relationships with hospital leadership, the research direction that would position us for the next decade, that work was getting scraps. My highest-value contributions were receiving my lowest-quality attention.
A mentor pulled me aside one afternoon. He had watched the pattern develop for months. He looked at me and said something that stung so precisely it left a mark.
"Prashant, you are excellent at your job. But you are terrible at letting other people be excellent at theirs."
That sentence restructured how I think about leadership.
Why 70, not 90
The principle is simple. If someone else can do it seventy percent as well as you, delegate it. Not ninety. Not eighty. Seventy.
Why seventy? Because that person will get to ninety with practice, guidance, and feedback. They might eventually do it better than you, because they bring a perspective you do not have. But they will never get there if you never give them the opportunity. Your refusal to delegate is not protecting quality. It is preventing growth, theirs and yours.
Here is the arithmetic most leaders refuse to do. While that person grows from seventy to ninety on the delegated task, you are freed to invest those hours in the work only you can do. Net output of the system goes up, not down. You are not losing twenty percent on one task. You are gaining a hundred percent of your time back on higher-value work. That is not a tradeoff. That is a multiplier.
THE BIG IDEA
Your refusal to delegate is not protecting quality. It is preventing growth. Yours and theirs. Every task you hold because you can do it ten percent better than someone else is a task that prevents you from doing the work only you can do.
For the Kids (and the big kids too)
Being good at something is not the same as being the one who must always do it. Real mastery is teaching it well enough that you are no longer needed.
Your three moves this week
Try one. Try all three. The point is the daily repetition, not the activity.
The Task Audit. Twenty minutes this weekend. List everything on your plate. Sort into three buckets: only I can do this, someone else could with guidance, someone else could today with minimal instruction.
Why this works: category one is always smaller than you think.
The 70% Handoff. Pick one task from category two. Delegate it properly: explain the why, define what success looks like, set a check-in at thirty percent. Then step back.
Why this works: a proper handoff pays for itself a hundred times over. A sloppy handoff pays for itself never.
The Identity Question. Ask yourself: am I paid to do the work, or to ensure the work gets done? Answer honestly. Then act accordingly this week.
Why this works: most leadership failures are identity failures dressed up as time problems.
"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all."
Peter Drucker
One question for you
What is one task on your plate this week that someone else could do at seventy percent? Hit reply and tell me. I read every response.
P.S. The full episode
Episode 6 runs less than 9 minutes and covers the three forms of delegation failure (the identity trap, quality anxiety, the time illusion), plus the radiology protocol metaphor I use with my trainees to explain when human judgment is irreplaceable and when it is the bottleneck.
Or listen wherever you prefer:
🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1895894753
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6iyYq5mSCrJS1Q95zlilOi
🎧 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/ae07c185-e579-43d0-aae6-bd136d6a2bfd
🎧 All listening apps: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2613584
📺 Watch on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@thebetterdailyshow
Small shifts. Big life. See you next week.
