I’m a third year associate, heading into my fourth year this fall. I have not had a ton of opportunities to manage more junior associates due to less hiring at the entry level in my group. Our few juniors have typically worked with senior associates. Now, however, I am being tasked with managing projects in some circumstances and have juniors staffed (who I am supposed to delegate work to).
I would consider my relationship with the juniors to be very friendly and collegiate. We get along well. However, when it comes time to give them work, they tell me all about how busy they are and how they’ll have to work all weekend to do the thing I was going to delegate to them (which isn’t even that time consuming). Or, they’ll take it on and then one day before it’s due they’ll let me know that they actually don’t have time. In the end, my options are always to do it myself or ask the partner for extensions, which I prefer not to do.
Is there an art to this? Hoping for tips on how to maintain a friendly relationship with juniors while actually getting them to do the work they are assigned to do.