You already know you should delegate more. The problem is actually doing it.

In this episode, Gloria McConnell and Adrian Owen Jones get honest about why delegation is so hard and why the reasons you think you can't delegate are the very reasons you should.

In this episode, we walk through what good delegation actually looks like in practice: from how to describe a task clearly enough that someone else can actually do it, to how to build checkpoints that protect both you and the person you're delegating to, to the critical difference between someone who can't do something and someone who won't.

They also cover the six-step delegation model used inside Success Labs' Essentials Lab program, the micromanagement distinction that changes everything, and what to do when you've tried to delegate and ended up doing it yourself anyway.

This is one of the most common challenges Gloria sees in coaching across industries, levels, and organizations. And while it never fully goes away, it does get easier when you treat delegation like the learned skill it actually is.

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Register for our next Essentials Lab on July 15-16th in Baton Rouge, LA using the link below.

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Most leaders know what they need to do. They just haven't started yet.

In the very first episode of Leading in Change, Melissa Thompson and Adrian Owen Jones talk about the first pancake — and why it's one of the most important metaphors in leadership.

The first pancake is always a little rough. The griddle isn't hot enough, the batter isn't quite right, the timing is off. But you have to make it to get to the good ones. The same is true for decisions, projects, initiatives, and change. You have to start somewhere — even when it's imperfect.

In this conversation, Melissa and Adrian dig into why leaders stall, what's really underneath it, and practical tools for building a bias toward action on your team.

They cover the 70% rule, the 48-hour decision rule, how to flip the question from "what are the risks of doing this wrong?" to "what's the cost of not starting?", and why psychological safety is the foundation every first pancake needs to land on.

This one is practical, honest, and a fitting first episode for a podcast that's all about leadership in the messy middle.

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Welcome to Leading in Change.

There are a lot of leadership podcasts out there. Most of them talk about leadership at a comfortable altitude — the ideal version, where everything goes according to plan.

This is not that podcast.

Leading in Change is about leadership in the messy middle. When your best employee quits and you don't know why. When you've been promoted and the people you used to work alongside are now looking to you for answers. When the organization around you is shifting and you still have to make good decisions — about who to trust, what to delegate, and how to show up.

In this first episode, host Adrian Owen Jones introduces who this podcast is for, why Success Labs decided to make it, and what you can expect from every conversation to come.

Success Labs has spent more than 40 years working inside organizations across the country — in hospitals and plants, in banks and nonprofits, in boardrooms and on factory floors.

And the through line across all of it is this: the challenges look different on the surface, but people are people. And the skills that make someone an effective leader are learnable. Every single one of them.

If you're a first-time supervisor still figuring out what your job actually is, a mid-level manager trying to build something that lasts, an HR leader looking for frameworks that actually land, or a senior leader who knows that the organization you want starts with the leaders you develop — you're in the right place.

Subscribe, tell a colleague, and we'll see you in Episode 1.

🗳️ Register for our next Essentials Leadership Lab.

📺 Watch & Subscribe on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/@successlabshq

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📬 Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Notes from the Lab