You can achieve much more by delegating effectively
By Angela Civitella
Previously published in WestmountMag.ca
Are you feeling stressed and overwhelmed? Or does your career seem to be at a standstill? If you need help and support, improve your delegation skills. There’s no shame in asking for help! Put aside your pride and respect the talent others can contribute.
Delegation is much more than simply distributing tasks. It is a powerful tool for motivating your team, developing your collaborators’ skills, and creating a dynamic and engaging work environment.
Improve your delegation skills if you find yourself in need of assistance and support.
Remember that success is not achieved in isolation. When you include and acknowledge everyone on your team, you propel yourself, your teammates, and your supporters to new heights.
If you work on your own, there’s only a limited amount that you can do, however hard you work. You can only work so many hours in a day. There are only so many tasks you can complete in these hours. You can only help so many people by doing these tasks. And because the number of people you can help is limited, your success is limited.
However, if you’re good at your job, people will want much more than this from you. This can create real pressure and overload: you can’t do everything everyone wants, and that can leave you stressed, unhappy, and feeling like you’re letting people down.
Learn how to delegate your work to other people. If you do this well, you can quickly build a strong and successful team of people, well able to meet the demands that others place.
On the positive side, however, you have a tremendous opportunity if you can work around this limitation. If you can realize this opportunity, you can be genuinely successful!
One of the most common ways of overcoming this limitation is to learn how to delegate your work to other people. If you do this well, you can quickly build a strong, successful team that can meet the demands others place on you. This is why delegation is such an important skill and is one that you have to learn!
Why people don’t delegate
To delegate properly, it helps to understand why people avoid it. Quite simply, people don’t delegate because it takes a lot of up-front effort.
After all, which is easier: designing and writing content for a brochure that promotes a new service you helped spearhead or having other members of your team do it? You know the content inside and out. You can spew benefit statements in your sleep. It would be relatively straightforward for you to sit down and write it. It would even be fun! The question is, “Would it be a good use of your time?”
Delegation allows you to make the best use of your time and skills, and it helps other people in the team grow and develop to reach their full potential in the organization.
While on the surface it’s easier to do it yourself than explain the strategy behind the brochure to someone else, two key reasons mean that it’s probably better to delegate the task to someone else:
First, if you can spearhead a new campaign, your skills are better used developing the strategy and coming up with other ideas. By doing the work yourself, you’re not making the best use of your time.
Second, by meaningfully involving other people in the project, you develop those people’s skills and abilities. This means that next time a similar project comes along, you can delegate the task with confidence that it will be done well, with much less involvement from you.
Delegation lets you use your time and skills more effectively, and it helps others on the team grow and develop to reach their full potential in the organization.
When to delegate
Delegation is a win-win when done appropriately; however, that doesn’t mean you can delegate anything. To determine when delegation is most appropriate, there are five key questions you need to ask yourself:
- Does someone else have (or can be given) the necessary information or expertise to complete the task? Essentially, is this a task that someone else can do, or is it critical that you do it yourself?
. - Does the task provide an opportunity to grow and develop another person’s skills?
. - Is this a task that will recur, in a similar form, in the future?
. - Do you have enough time to delegate the job effectively? You must have time for adequate training, questions and answers, opportunities to check progress, and rework if necessary.
. - Is this a task that I should delegate? Tasks critical for long-term success (for example, recruiting the right people for your team) genuinely do need your attention.
•
If you can answer “yes” to at least some of the above questions, it may be worth delegating this job.
‘Delegation is a win-win when done appropriately, however that does not mean that you can delegate just anything.’
Other factors that contribute to delegation of a task include:
- The project’s timelines/deadlines
– How much time is available to do the job?
– Is there time to redo the job if it’s not done the first time properly?
– What are the consequences of not completing the job on time?
. - Your expectations or goals for the project or task(s), including:
– How important is it that the results are of the highest possible quality?
– Is an “adequate” result good enough?
– Would failure be crucial?
– How much would failure impact other things?
•
That said, having all these conditions present is no guarantee the delegated task will be completed successfully. You also need to consider to whom you will delegate the task and how you will do it.
To whom should you delegate?
The factors to consider here include:
- The experience, knowledge and skills of the individual as they apply to the delegated task
– What knowledge, skills and attitude does the person already have?
– Do you have the time and resources to provide any training needed?
. - The individual’s preferred work style
– How independent is the person?
– What does he or she want from his or her job?
– What are his or her long-term goals and interests, and how do these align with the work proposed?
. - The current workload of this person
– Does the person have time to take on more work?
– Will delegating this task require reshuffling of other responsibilities and workloads?
•
How should you delegate?
Use the following principles to delegate successfully:
- Clearly articulate the desired outcome. Begin with the end in mind and specify the desired results.
. - Clearly identify constraints and boundaries. Where are the lines of authority, responsibility and accountability? Should the person:
– Wait to be told what to do?
– Ask what to do?
– Recommend what should be done, and then act?
– Act, and then report results immediately?
– Initiate action, and then report periodically?
. - Where possible, include people in the delegation process. Empower them to decide what tasks are to be delegated to them and when.
. - Match the amount of responsibility with the amount of authority. Understand that you can delegate some responsibility, however you can’t delegate away ultimate accountability. The buck stops with you!
. - Delegate to the lowest possible organizational level. People closest to the work are best suited for the task because they have the most intimate knowledge of the details of everyday work. This also increases workplace efficiency and helps to develop people.
. - Provide adequate support, and be available to answer questions. Ensure the project’s success through ongoing communication and monitoring as well as the provision of resources and credit.
. - Focus on results. Focus on what is accomplished, rather than detailing how the work should be done: Your way is not necessarily the only or even the best! Allow the person to control his or her own methods and processes. This facilitates success and trust.
. - Avoid “upward delegation”. If there is a problem, don’t allow the person to shift responsibility for the task back to you: ask for recommended solutions, and don’t simply provide an answer.
. - Build motivation and commitment. Discuss how success will impact financial rewards, future opportunities, informal recognition, and other desirable consequences. Provide recognition where deserved.
. - Establish and maintain control.
– Discuss timelines and deadlines.
– Agree on a schedule of checkpoints at which you’ll review project progress.
– Make adjustments as necessary.
– Take time to review all submitted work.
•
In thoroughly considering these key points prior to and during the delegation process you will find that you delegate more successfully.
We all know that as managers, we shouldn’t micromanage. However, this doesn’t mean we must abdicate control altogether.
Keeping control
Now, once you have worked through the above steps, make sure you brief your team member appropriately. Take time to explain why they were chosen for the job, what’s expected of them during the project, the goals you have for the project, all timelines and deadlines, and the resources they can draw on. Agree on a schedule for progress updates.
Lastly, make sure the team member knows you want to know if any problems occur and that you are available for any questions or guidance as the work progresses.
We all know that as managers, we shouldn’t micromanage. However, this doesn’t mean we must abdicate control altogether. To delegate effectively, we have to find the sometimes-difficult balance between giving people enough space to use their abilities to the best effect and monitoring and supporting them closely enough to ensure the job is done correctly and effectively.
The importance of full acceptance
When delegated work is delivered back to you, set aside enough time to review it thoroughly. If possible, accept only high-quality, fully completed work. If you accept work you are not satisfied with, your team member does not learn to do the job properly. Worse than this, you accept a whole new tranche of work that you will probably need to complete yourself. Not only does this overload you, it also means you don’t have time to do your own job properly.
To delegate effectively, choose the right tasks to delegate, identify the right people to delegate to, and delegate in the right way.
Of course, when good work comes back to you, make sure to recognize and reward the effort. As a leader, get into the habit of complimenting team members whenever you are impressed by what they have done. This recognition will go a long way toward building team members’ self-confidence and efficiency, both of which will improve the next delegated task; hence, you both win.
Key points
At first glance, delegation can feel like more hassle than it’s worth; however, by delegating effectively, you can greatly expand the amount of work you can deliver.
When you arrange the workload so that you are working on the tasks that have the highest priority for you, and other people are working on meaningful and challenging assignments, you have a recipe for success.
To delegate effectively, choose the right tasks to delegate, identify the right people to delegate to, and delegate in the right way. There’s a lot to it, but you’ll achieve so much more once you delegate effectively!
Image: Moose Photos – Pexels
More articles by Angela Civitella
RECENT ARTICLES
Angela Civitella, a certified management business coach, negotiator, strategist, and problem-solver, creates strong synergies with those seeking to improve their leadership and team-building skills. You can reach Angela at linkedin.com/in/angelacivitella/ • intinde.com
