A leader can understand the case for delegation and still intervene whenever a colleague chooses a different method. The intervention may feel like protection of quality. To the colleague, it can signal that ownership is provisional.
The practical issue is whether both people share the same limits and standards.
Make the agreement specific
Choose a decision that can reasonably be transferred. Define the outcome, material risks and conditions requiring consultation. Explain which preferences are genuinely necessary and which are simply your own habits.
Ask the colleague to work through an example. This reveals disagreements that broad instructions about ownership can conceal.
Notice the impulse to take work back
When you want to intervene, identify what has happened. Has an agreed limit been crossed? Is there new evidence? Or does the approach mainly feel unfamiliar?
If intervention is needed, explain the reason. If it is not, let the owner proceed and review the result at the agreed time.
Pressure and personal attachment may make this difficult, but they do not establish that delegation is physiologically impossible. A clearer agreement and repeated experience of respecting it can change the working relationship.
Track whether routine questions stop returning to you. Delegation is succeeding when the colleague can exercise judgment within the agreed boundary and you can reserve attention for decisions that still require it.
