Importance of Delegation

When my little brother and I were 5 years and 8 years old we started to put on neighborhood fairs in our front yard. It started out as something fun to occupy our time but soon became a huge community event. Our first year we only raised $30 but we only went up from there. The following years we began to get sponsors and support from the community.  These fairs included carnival type games, bounce houses, dunk tanks, cotton candy machines, donkey rides, DJ, fire truck tours and hundreds of dollars worth of candy, toys and raffle items-all which were donated. Our last several years of the fairs we would make over $8,000 in one day! We donated all of the money to cancer research. For the past five years I worked closely with Dr. Ernie Bodai,the man pioneering the Breast Cancer Stamp, and donated the money from our fair to his foundation, Cure Breast Cancer, Inc

As the fairs got bigger, my brother and I had more help from our friends with setting up, cleaning up and working the fairs. As a leader, I lacked in the delegation department because I had a hard time trusting others. I wanted to do everything myself to ensure that it got done correctly. My lack of trust usually upset the other kids. Although it was so long ago, I still remember how I acted as a leader and it has helped me in current leadership roles because I don't want to make that mistake again. I think of Maya Angelou's quote-- I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel-- and this is how I want to conduct myself as a leader.
FOr more information you can view Dr. Bodai's website:
http://www.curebreastcancer.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=759&Itemid=76