Do it, Delegate it or Dump it
Sure I've waffled about this before, but there's an article on StickyMinds.com titled "Win-Win Delegation" in which the most important (to my mind) point is "Delegate Authority with the Task". There's nothing worse than giving someone a task to do, but not the tools they need to do it, and authority is just another tool at the end of the day. (A very important tool admittedly!)