Delegation

I am notoriously bad at delegation. Somehow I always end up running everything I touch. I have one friend who teases me, not-so-gently, saying, "Oh yes, as long as I am here everything will go right." And he's right. There is a part of me that thinks that. I fight it, of course, but the control-freak in me wants to have control because then things will go as I have planned them. Which is the "perfect" way, right?

When I took over the Children's choir that I direct, I was put in place as President. The hope of the outgoing President was that I would continue her work as an able administrator and be able to recruit more children. I served as President for half a year. In that time, my director left, because I had new ideas about how to run the chorus. And out numbers were still not growing, though they were steady. I knew that I could not direct and administrate at the same time.

Because I wanted things under my control, I put my husband in place as President. He has done a fantastic job. We have gone from 8 kids to 24 kids in 4 years. Because he is a great delegator he has formed a Parent's Board and all the attendant committees to help run the chorus. I realized today, while answering an e-mail that the chours runs itself, and I have to do nothing but teach music. God has dropped all these wonderful, capable people in the Parent's Board and they run the nuts and bolts. I could not do what I do without them.

All I had to do was let go a little bit to let the chorus grow. It reminds me of the Chinese practice of binding feet: the more tightly you bind them, the smaller they are. The more tightly I hold on to projects, the more they shrivel. They can only grow, when I unclench my fists and my teeth and let go.

Picture by Jaime de la Cruz on flickr