The difference between deputising someone to do something and delegating that same something is huge.
Deputise means to hand over control and move on. Delegate means to half hand over control and half move on.
When you deputise, you need to have something else to do, otherwise, you'll be stuggling to find purpose and most probably start sticking your nose back into what you let go of.
Parents - especially non working Mothers do this. As the children grow up to become adults the parent needs to deputise the child and society to take the reins of that young adult's life, but to do this, the parent needs their own future filled with new opportunities. Shopping and cleaning usually doesn't cut it.
Partners - especially non working partners are often the recipient of much delegated life, the crappy jobs that the working partner considers low priority. Automatically there's a devaluation in that. Deputise is different. It's almost like saying "I don't want to know the details.... when a partnership doesn't get this right, most other aspects of the relationship fall apart. It's all about trust.
Entrepreneurs - You can't build the next thing until you deputise the leadership and management of the last thing. Many entrepreneurs fail in their new ventures because they're still carrying the luggage of the old ventures. The real art of management and leadership however, is to make yourself redundant, hold onto some equity and let others step into your shoes. That's the art of deputising. it's far different to delegate where you chunk down a job into component parts and find poorly or less qualified people to do the fragmented components while you remain central to the collation of the various inputs. That's hard work.
Managers and Execs in Organisations - Most often delegation is prefered because most execs and managers are covering their arse, trying to save their own job. But great management always makes your own job redundant, and the company and you need to be reinventing your job to expand its reach, rather than going around in circles trying to reinvent easier less stressful ways of doing the same old same old, over and over and over and over w
