David,
Loved the insight... it made me do some serious introspection about my own delegation skills, or the lack thereof.  I think one of my greatest challenges in delegation is the accountability aspect.  I believe in staff, challenge and delegate, and don't feel a need to micromanage the process.  But holding them accountable has always made me feel like I'm the bad guy.  I need to shift my thinking, I think, to remember that NOT holding them accountable is the bad thing.  If I'm ever going to expect my team members to grow, they need to be stretched.  They also need to be held accountable if they don't follow through or do what they were supposed to.

I have had lots of great leaders in my life, and as I reflect, the best ones were ones that I knew would hold me accountable and deal directly with me.  I want to be one of those leaders.

A question:  When having those moments of accountability, should location of that conversation be an important consideration?  By that I mean, should those conversations be a "can you come to my office" conversation, or a "Hey, I dropped by your office/desk to follow up with you about...".  Does that impact the seriousness of the level of accountability?