To delegate or not to delegate

I'm a control freak. I know I am. I try not to be....but it just doesn't work. As a manager, I always feel incredible guilt when I don't delegate and let go of the reins enough to let someone else have a go. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

In this new job of mine (although not so new any more.....it's been since Jan 1) I don't have any direct reports so a lot of what I do I have complete control over. There are times when I feel I'm doing very mundane admin work and my boss will find out and fire me. While I know that it won't happen, it makes me think that when it's very very administrative I should train someone more junior to do the work.

That's what I did last week. AND WHY DOES IT BACKFIRE?

All I wanted this person to do is open up a reporting program, filter by an account name and product and copy and paste it into Excel. Now do it 23 more times for each of the other accounts. Easy right? Foolproof right? Yeah.....well......not. I thought I'd done the right thing. I showed them, they showed me - we're all good. This person has always done stellar work before so I saw no reason to check at all.

I find nothing worse when I'm trying to get lots of managers to do things differently, I give them information and it's wrong. I feel like a complete idiot - and I'm mad as hell. Not only because I look stupid, but more importantly it's now taking more time than it would have if I'd just done it myself. I'm not cut out for this mentoring crap - I just should suck it up and do it myself.

I've just finished the "you made errors, so please do it again - correctly this time" conversation. The big question is will I trust the results?

The answer is a big...fat...NO NO NO NO NO.

Ah well....such is life.