Coaching practices for Authority Levels Leadership

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Authority Levels Leadership, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• I either throw someone in too deep and watch them flounder, or I keep a hand on everything long after they’ve outgrown it and can feel them getting stifled
• I hand something off thinking I was clear, and then they wait around for my go-ahead while I assumed they’d just run with it
• I’ve basically written my team off as weak
• There are people on my team I’ve quietly written off
• Everything still flows through me

Practices that may help

1. Delegation Levels, Made Practical
   Delegation levels frameworks (most commonly a 5- or 7-level scale) give managers and their reports a shared vocabulary for how much authority is being handed over on any task — from "wait for my instructions" to "decide and act without telling me." The model is practitioner wisdom rather than formally studied, but the underlying principle — that ambiguity about authority is the root of both micromanagement and abdication — has solid organizational support.
2. Match the delegation level to the person’s current competence and confidence
   Over-delegate to someone who isn’t ready and they fail; under-delegate and they stagnate.
   Delegation Levels, Made Practical
3. Name the delegation level explicitly at the start of every task
   State clearly whether you want a recommendation, a decision with notification, or a decision without notification — before the work begins.
   Delegation Levels, Made Practical
4. There are no bad teams, only bad leaders
   The same people perform differently under different leadership — so start with the leadership.
   Extreme Ownership, Made Practical
5. Deliberately expand your inner circle
   Move team members from low-LMX to high-LMX through intentional relationship investment.
   Leader-Member Exchange (LMX), Made Practical
6. Distribute leadership rather than centralizing it
   Develop leadership capacity throughout the team, not just in the designated leader.
   Transformational Leadership, Made Practical
7. Manage LMX differentiation fairly as a leader
   Acknowledge that you develop different relationships with different people — and ensure the differences are earned, not arbitrary.
   Leader-Member Exchange (LMX), Made Practical
8. Use delegation as a development tool
   Assign Q3 tasks to team members who are ready to stretch — and treat the learning curve as the point.
   The Eisenhower Matrix and Delegation
9. Level 5 Leadership: Humility and Will in Great Leaders
   Jim Collins’ Good to Great research found that the leaders who took companies from good to great shared a paradoxical combination of fierce personal will and deep personal humility — what Collins calls Level 5 Leadership. They channeled ambition into the institution, not themselves, and set up successors for greatness rather than engineering dependence.
10. Influence through persuasion, not positional power
    Build consensus and convince rather than command — authority is the last resort, not the first.
    Servant Leadership, Made Practical

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