Effective delegation

It’s late Friday afternoon. You’re at your desk as your team heads off home for the evening. You feel stressed and overwhelmed because your To-do list is longer than your arm and you’ve got deadlines coming out of your ears. Come 5.30pm you find yourself alone in the office, wondering how you’ll ever get everything done.

This is a common scenario for many leaders. We’re here to tell you that working long hours is not the way to get the job done. The solution to your problems is delegation, or to be more specific, knowing how to delegate effectively. You have a team for a reason - to share the load and help you achieve your objectives.

In this post we’re going to look at some of the top delegation challenges faced by managers. We’ll ask why some of us find it so difficult to empower our teams and share a solution that could benefit you and other leaders in your organisation.

What is delegation?

Delegation is the process of assigning responsibility for tasks to other people. In simple terms, delegating tasks should free up time to focus on other aspects of your role. It’s fundamental to managing a team effectively, yet so many leaders struggle with it.

Why is delegation so difficult?

There are many reasons why you may find it hard to delegate responsibility to your team:

• You’ve been let down by a team member in the past and don’t want to look foolish again

• You’re too close to the project. Perhaps it was your idea and you’re not ready to let go of your brainchild.

• You believe it’s quicker to do it yourself and you’ll do a better job anyway

• You actually enjoy doing the task yourself

• You have a new team and don’t know their skillset well enough yet

• You don’t trust anyone else with sensitive information

• You don’t understand how or when to delegate effectively

• You’re new to leadership and have never had the opportunity to delegate before

Trust and fear

Delegation becomes difficult when you:

1. Don’t trust your team, or

2. Are frightened of letting go.

The connection between most of the excuses listed above is a lack of trust. Leaders who don’t delegate don’t trust their team members to take responsibility for the task.

The second theme boils down to a fear of letting go. It’s common to hear managers say they worry that someone else will mess it up or do it wrong, when often the real fear is that they might do a better job than them.

You can still feel in control

If you continuously do things yourself you’re not working efficiently or effectively. When you delegate a task, responsibility for that task and its outcome remains with you. You’re simply getting it done more efficiently by asking someone else to do the work. Once you’ve delegated to a member of your team, you have to monitor that employee’s performance - it’s called management!

What have you got to lose? Delegate a simple task to someone else and see what happens.

The benefits of delegation

For your team

• Employees feel more responsible and valued in their work

• Builds trust, satisfaction and promotes engagement

• Develops competencies and skills

• Allows people to feel a bigger part of what’s being delivered

For leaders

• More focused time to do the tasks that cannot be delegated

• Watch your team grow and develop as you share responsibility with them

• Take time to develop your own leadership skills

• Clear your To-do list and go home at a reasonable hour

New managers vs. Experienced managers

Both new and experienced managers can suffer from an inability to delegate. As a new manager, it’s important to get to know the people you manage and understand their skillset so you feel more confident to delegate. If you’re completely new to delegation, we recommend seeking out the learning to need to build your skills in this area. Keep reading for details of a webinar you might find interesting.

Experienced managers might not be aware of, or have experienced, the full benefits of delegation. This could be the result of a lack of training, refusal to adapt, or working under the influence of a manager who lacked skills in this area.

Delegation is simply sharing responsibility

Leading and managing a team effectively involves developing people and understanding how to get the best out of them. It’s up to you to give your team the tools to succeed. If you choose not to delegate because you don’t believe your team are skilled enough to take on the responsibility, could the act of delegating actually build their competencies? It’s worth thinking about.

Sharing responsibility with your team creates engagement within your team. It won’t always be plain sailing. There may be times when the work produced is not up to the standards you expect, or the outcome does not fulfil the objective. As a manager it’s your role to question and understand the reasons for this; to guide and equip your team to deliver what’s expected in the future.

Spending time to set standards for shared responsibility now will bring plentiful rewards in the long-term. Imagine how good you’ll feel when you tick off that last task and clock off at the same time as your colleagues.

Discover the art of effective delegation

Do you feel you might be under-utilising your team’s talents but struggle to let them take control? If so, we recommend booking on to our next free lunch and learn session on Wednesday 7th June. Our Effective Delegation webinar will cover tips and approaches for managers on how to effectively delegate workload, including what to delegate, when to delegate, and to whom. It’s an ideal learning opportunity for leaders who are reluctant to let go or who are new to the concept of delegating their workload. Discover more and book your place here.

Further reading

If you enjoyed this post, you might also consider reading Being a Good Leader and Influencing and Motivating Teams.

How we can help you

If you’d like to discuss management development or any of the leadership challenges raised in this post, please contact us on 0161 941 2426. We’d love to help.