It is 1600, the guests arrive at 1800, and the master cabin flowers are wrong. Your second offered to redo them. You said "it is fine, I will do it" — and now you are arranging peonies instead of checking the allergy list, briefing the crew and looking at the whole picture. You have just demoted yourself to stew, and left the department without a leader for forty minutes.
Why HODs refuse to delegate
The reasons are always the same, and always wrong: it is faster to do it myself; nobody else does it to my standard; if I hand it over I look idle; if they fail, it is on me anyway. Each is true once and false forever. A HOD who absorbs tasks becomes the bottleneck of the department, and the crew learn that their work will be silently redone — which destroys both initiative and self-respect.
What to delegate, and what never to
| Delegate | Keep |
|---|---|
| Recurring tasks with a clear standard (cabins, turndowns, laundry cycles) | Discipline, appraisals, welfare conversations |
| Whole tasks with visible outcomes | Anything requiring your delegated authority (signing off, liaising with the Master) |
| Development opportunities that stretch a competent crew member | The final safety decision in your department |
| Ownership of a system (uniform, inventory, provisioning list) | Guest-critical judgement calls you alone hold the context for |
Delegate the task and the authority to do it, not the task alone. Handing someone a job without the power or resources to complete it is a trap, not a delegation.
How to delegate properly
- Define the outcome, not the keystrokes. State the standard and the deadline, and let them choose the method where safe to do so.
- Confirm understanding with a read-back — closed-loop, in their own words.
- Agree the check-in points before they start: "Show me the table at 1700, not at 1755."
- Give the constraints: budget, time, who they may ask, what must come back to you.
- Let them make small, recoverable mistakes. That is what training is.
Checking without hovering
Set the checkpoint at a moment when a problem is still fixable. Inspect the outcome against the agreed standard, not against how you personally would have done it. If it meets the standard but is not your style, say nothing. If it misses the standard, coach it — and be honest with yourself about whether the standard was ever actually communicated.
Delegation is not abdication
You remain accountable. If the cabin is wrong, the failure is yours to answer for and theirs to fix. That is not unfair; it is what the extra stripe pays for. What you must never do is delegate the task, take back the credit, and hand down the blame.
Onboard Notes
- Do not delegate a safety-critical task to someone who is not trained and assessed for it. Familiarisation and training requirements sit in your SMS.
- Redoing a crew member work in silence is the most corrosive habit an interior HOD can have. If it was not good enough, say so and show why.
- Watch the day you start doing cabins yourself "just to help". It usually means the rota is broken, and the rota is your job.