How to Delegate Effectively as a Leader

Coaching Auto Industry Controller to Achieve 25% Boost in Productivity Through Improved Confidence in Leadership Skills and Delegation

We recently interviewed our client, Kristi Wallace, Corporate Controller at Jim Taylor Auto Group.  

Here’s what Kristi had to say about the challenges that caused her to pursue coaching, Jan’s approach to helping her address those issues, and the results. 

Challenges: 

As a 30-year Auto Industry professional, my workload had been growing steadily throughout my career. I was also struggling with significant eye fatigue from screen time—it was beginning to impact my job performance and my sleep. I was at a breaking point mentally and physically.  

I had never had coaching before, so when I started my sessions with Jan, I didn’t have any specific expectations—only the hope that we could make some adjustments to lessen the impact of my eye strain and my heavy workload in order to boost my productivity.  

During my first coaching session with Jan, she helped me realize that my struggles were actually just a symptom of a larger problem. The root cause of my challenges was that I wasn’t delegating any of the work I was taking on. My leadership style was getting in the way, and I needed to make some adjustments to it.  

While I may have occasionally reassigned tasks to someone else, I often found myself double-checking all of their work. This habit was not only adding to my physical discomfort, but on a much larger scale, it was also sending the wrong message to my team and creating additional work for me. This became a primary focus of our coaching sessions.  

Solutions: 

First, Jan addressed the physical symptom of my massive workload—my eye strain. She provided tailored, practical strategies to help me address my discomfort. Her suggestions (e.g. using dark mode on all of my devices) immediately improved my comfort and productivity.  

Next, Jan examined my workload. She helped me realize that there were huge opportunities to increase not only my own job satisfaction, but my team’s as well.  

Upon hearing that I often double-checked my team’s work, Jan pushed me to do some self-reflection about why that was. When I dug deep, I realized that I didn’t lack confidence in my team—I lacked confidence in my own leadership skills, and it was getting in the way of me utilizing my team to their full potential.  

Jan showed me that my habit of delegating and double-checking—rather than leaning fully into the expertise of my team—was:  

• unnecessarily adding to my workload  

• sending my team the message that I didn’t trust them to do their jobs 

• keeping me from focusing my attention on my most important work 

Over the course of our work together, Jan helped me to grow my confidence in my own leadership skills and start truly delegating some of my responsibilities. The more I delegated (and fully let go of) the tasks on my plate, the more I saw my team’s confidence grow. I also saw huge benefits in my own workload, productivity, stress level, sleep, and more.  

Results: 

• Over 60% Decrease in Stress: Over the course of 3-4 months, I was able to delegate so many tasks to my team members that I saved about 20-25% of my time. This has made me significantly more productive and has resulted in an increase in job satisfaction of over 80%. 

• Increased Confidence: I have greater confidence in my leadership abilities now. This shift has allowed me to delegate tasks more effectively, significantly reducing my workload.  

• Positive Impact on Team: My team members have all benefited from my coaching.  Most notably, my assistant has enjoyed receiving increased learning opportunities as she grows in her position in an industry that’s relatively new to her. This has positively impacted her job satisfaction.  

I was thrilled with how immediate the changes were, how Jan pushed me to reflect on my habits, and how steadfast she was in her determination to identify the root causes of my challenges and help me solve them. I also appreciated that Jan provided additional resources for me to access between sessions. She regularly recommended books, podcast episodes, etc. that augmented what we discussed in our sessions. 

I’m so grateful to have more time in my day and to be experiencing less stress, less physical discomfort, and even better sleep from the changes we made. I’m a healthier person because of these sessions. 

On average, our coaching clients see a 10% boost in productivity—that’s like getting more than a month of your year back! 

Coaching is a powerful investment you can make in yourself and your team members. And it’s an investment with real results.  

Interested in coaching for yourself or someone on your team? Book a conversation.  

Let us help you create a culture where productivity fuels happiness.