Welcome to the Broad Experience, the show about women, the workplace, and success.

I'm Ashley Milthight. This time, a lot of women don't feel comfortable delegating. And there may be good reason for that.

We're supposed to do it all. And we're not supposed to ask for help and we're supposed to be perfect in all that we do. But what

ends up happening is that then when we delegate, we don't feel right because we're sort of letting

somebody else do it. But a desire to control the outcome can also play a part. The struggle is not wanting to... I think it's the assumption that we can take control of things that are not remotely within our control. Coming up, why some of us shy away from delegation and how to master it.

I was doing an interview a few months ago,

and I asked my guest why she thought so few women in Sweden had top jobs in the private sector.

This is, in spite of the country's egalitarian outlook,

and all the effort it's made to ease life for working parents.

And one thing she said was, well, I've noticed women aren't that good at delegating.

And she said, when you don't delegate, you don't have time to focus on more of the big stuff and the

less obvious networky kind of stuff that can help your career. That delegation question is

something I've thought about too. I have been a reluctant delegator in the past. I've caught

myself thinking time and again, oh, I'll just do that. It's easier. It's easier if I do it. I'll do it better. But what that means is spending a lot of time on stuff that's fairly routine and could be outsourced. I sat down recently with Rahel Ellison to talk about this. She was a guest on a past show I did about work and motherhood. She's a coach and a

consultant and she works a lot with new parents, mostly women, who are going back to demanding

jobs after their leave ends. She's also a partner at the Centre for Parental Leave Leadership.

What's your impression of how comfortable the women you work with are with delegation?

They're not. They're very uncomfortable with delegation. And I think there's a sense of wanting to do your

best in every sphere of your life and wanting to kind of control that outcome. And delegation

obviously takes away from your ability to control the outcome. So I think it's, you know, you see it with

parenting. You see it in the workplace. But I think most of the people who I've worked with

are quite uncomfortable with delegation. Again, I've often noted my own desire to control, and I've noted it in a lot of other women.

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