---
title: "Leave a Gap for Your Subordinates (Essential Management Reading)"
description: "Give a monkey a tree to climb endlessly; give a tiger a mountain to roam freely. Leaving a gap for others does not mean you are incompetent; it is a management wisdom and a higher-level, holistic perfection. A famous entrepreneur drew an incomplete circle on the blackboard, leaving a gap, and asked the audience what it was. He explained that his success came from not doing things perfectly, but leaving gaps for his subordinates to fill."
author: "New Distribution"
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published: "2015-06-17"
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# Leave a Gap for Your Subordinates (Essential Management Reading)

> Give a monkey a tree to climb endlessly; give a tiger a mountain to roam freely. Leaving a gap for others does not mean you are incompetent; it is a management wisdom and a higher-level, holistic perfection. A famous entrepreneur drew an incomplete circle on the blackboard, leaving a gap, and asked the audience what it was. He explained that his success came from not doing things perfectly, but leaving gaps for his subordinates to fill.

**Introduction**
Give a monkey a tree to climb endlessly; give a tiger a mountain to roam freely. Leaving a gap for others does not mean you are incompetent. In fact, it is a management wisdom and a higher-level, holistic perfection.

A famous entrepreneur was giving a report when an audience member asked: "You have achieved great success in your career. What is the most important thing for you?"

The entrepreneur did not answer directly. He picked up a piece of chalk and drew a circle on the blackboard, but he did not complete it, leaving a gap. He asked back: "What is this?" "Zero," "Circle," "Unfinished business," "Success," the audience answered in a flurry.

He did not comment on these answers: "Actually, this is just an incomplete period. You ask me why I have achieved brilliant results. The reason is simple: I do not do things to perfection. Just like drawing a period, I always leave a gap for my subordinates to fill."

Leaving a gap for others does not mean you are incompetent. In fact, it is a management wisdom and a higher-level, holistic perfection.

Give a monkey a tree to climb endlessly; give a tiger a mountain to roam freely. Perhaps this is the highest realm of corporate management and personnel use.

**Leave a Gap for Your Subordinates**
In real life, some leaders are high-profile, always habitually expanding their importance infinitely, doing everything big and small themselves, with employees only as assistants, making themselves busy like headless flies. Low-key managers are the opposite; they have a clearer understanding of themselves. Even if their abilities are strong, they are still limited, so they must delegate trivial matters to subordinates. Leaving a gap for others does not mean you are incompetent. In fact, it is a management wisdom and a higher-level, holistic perfection.

A person has only two hands. Even if working 24 hours a day, it is impossible to do everything yourself; you must delegate to subordinates. Relying on one person alone cannot grow a company. You must rely on the collective efforts of all employees, unite and cooperate, and use everyone's wisdom and strength to drive the enterprise. This is the best way for enterprise development. Doing everything yourself is a suppression of employee wisdom and often backfires. Over time, employees tend to become lazy, their sense of responsibility greatly decreases, and they shift all responsibility to managers. In severe cases, employees may develop a sense of boredom and be unwilling to point out mistakes to managers even when they occur. Moreover, no one is perfect; individual wisdom is limited and one-sided.

Draw a blueprint for employees, leave them space, and let them use their wisdom; they will draw better. Involving employees more in company decision-making is an affirmation of them and satisfies their spiritual need for self-realization. Giving employees more responsibility and authority will lead to results you never expected.

Of course, leaving a gap does not mean giving up authority and responsibility. Leaders still need to track and guide in a timely manner, and stimulate employees' creativity from an active perspective. Every manager must attach great importance to effective delegation. Whether delegation is successful determines the rise and fall of the enterprise and affects the smooth progress of work. Therefore, delegation is indispensable and imperative, and it must be effective. Managers should assess the object of delegation before delegating, and prepare the difficulty of the work to be assigned, so as to give appropriate rights and responsibilities to suitable people. Only in this way can effective delegation be achieved. Managers can decide the amount of authority to delegate based on specific circumstances: delegate more to those with strong abilities, let them take on more responsibility; delegate less to those with weak abilities, and then gradually increase delegation as they gain experience.

**Delegation Tips:**
1. Choose the object of delegation. People have different aspirations; managers should delegate authority to those who are willing to accept it.
2. Managers must clarify which rights cannot be delegated and which can, and how much authority to retain. This depends on different situations, task natures, environments, and subordinates.
3. Adopt different delegation methods according to different situations.

**Blurred Delegation**
Clarify the scope of responsibilities and work items. Managers have clear requirements for the goals to be achieved and the direction of orders, but do not specify the specific methods to achieve the goals. The delegatee has great freedom and creative space in the process of completing the task.

**Flexible Delegation**
After delegating, managers only indicate an outline and framework, without specific work assignments. The delegatee has great leeway to handle matters differently according to time, place, and person.

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