You will be able to decide how closely to supervise based on the person's experience with this particular task.
Wei Ling handed Arjun one of the two top-tier client accounts, and it went well from the first day. He has handled difficult clients for six years and needed almost nothing from her. Encouraged, she also asked him to prepare next year's team budget, told him to "use his judgement", and didn't check in for three weeks. The draft that came back assumed two new hires the company had never approved, and Daniel was due to see it that afternoon.
Arjun had not changed between the two tasks. His experience with each of them was completely different, and Wei Ling had managed both the same way.
Andy Grove gave this a name in High Output Management: task-relevant maturity. It is a person's experience and track record with the specific task in front of them, not their seniority, age or general ability. The same person can be highly experienced at one task and brand new at another, and the right way to manage them changes with the task.
Arjun has high task-relevant maturity for client handling and very low task-relevant maturity for budgeting. Hui Min, eight months in, has low maturity for most client work but high maturity for spreadsheet analysis, which she did for three years in her last job. Labelling Arjun "senior" and Hui Min "junior" misses both of those.
Grove matched management style to task-relevant maturity. When it is low, the person needs structure: a clear brief, defined steps for the parts they have never done, and frequent, early check-ins. When it is moderate, the focus moves to two-way discussion and support, since they know the basics but still benefit from talking through decisions. When it is high, the person needs a clear goal and space, with you checking only on results.
For Arjun's budget, low maturity meant the right approach was a working session at the start to walk through how the budget is built, a check after the first draft of the headcount section, and a review before anything went to Daniel. For his client account, high maturity meant a monthly chat about how the account was going, and nothing more.
The mistake runs both ways. Supervising an experienced person closely feels like micromanaging, and it is. Leaving a new person alone with an unfamiliar task feels like trust, but it's closer to neglect, and the person is the one who pays when it goes wrong.
Separately from how often you check in, decide how much authority the person has. It helps to think in levels. Four are enough for most work.
At the first level, the person looks into it and reports back. They gather the facts and you decide.
At the second, they recommend. They gather the facts, propose what to do, and you approve it or not.
At the third, they decide and tell you. They make the call and let you know what they decided, so you are never surprised.
At the fourth, they decide alone. You don't need to hear about it unless something goes wrong.
The budget should have been level one or two for Arjun: draft it and recommend, and Wei Ling decides what goes upward. His client account can sit at level three for most decisions, with level two for anything involving refunds above the team limit.
Levels can also change during a task. A person can start at level two and move to level three once you have seen two or three of their recommendations and agreed with them.
This is the part most managers skip. Most delegation fights come from two people holding different assumptions about authority. The manager assumed "recommend", the team member heard "decide", and both feel let down when the decision comes back made.
When Wei Ling told Arjun to "use his judgement" on the budget, she meant "draft something reasonable for me to review". He heard "this is yours". Neither of them was being unreasonable. They just never said it.
So say it, in plain words, at the moment you hand the task over. "For the budget, I'd like you to draft it and recommend the numbers. I'll decide what goes to Daniel." Or: "For the Changi account, make the calls yourself and tell me what you decided in our one-on-one. Anything above the refund limit, check with me first." Write it in the shared one-on-one document from lesson 2.3, A shared document that makes each meeting count, so neither of you has to rely on memory.
For every task you delegate, you now have three decisions. How much experience does this person have with this task? How often will you check in? What level of authority will they have? The answers should line up. Low experience usually means more check-ins and a lower authority level to start, high experience usually means fewer check-ins and more authority.
Go through your team one person at a time and make those three decisions for one task each.
For each person on your team, pick one task and write their experience level with it, the authority level you will give and the check-in rhythm.
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