Responsibility and Authority

When I started working at the nascent Mishpacha Magazine, I took a lot of orders. My first job was translating — I’d get big manila envelopes in my mailbox with articles to translate and a list of deadlines for submission. Then I began doing editing work. Each piece came with instructions and a deadline.

Over the years I was assigned more and varied tasks, and got involved in more and varied projects. In a sense, one of the biggest shifts occurred when instead of taking instructions from an editor, I found myself giving instructions to a team member instead.

It was sometime around then that I learned one of the most important lessons in the school of management. The person who taught it to me is Mishpacha’s publisher, Eli Paley, and his version sounds better in his original Hebrew: Ein achrayut b’li samchut. Rough translation: you can’t give someone responsibility unless you’re also prepared to give them authority.

That axiom might be the most basic bedrock principle of delegation, and therefore of any managerial position. But you’ll see it playing out in settings far removed from any office.