Delegation
As a manager you will have to delegate work to others. Delegation is a fundamental requirement of management but sadly many managers do it very badly. Delegating is not simply a matter of telling someone to do something.
In order to delegate effectively you need to ensure that the person to whom you delegate a task is provided with four things;
Skill, Time, Authority and Responsibility
Skill. You must ensure that the person has the skill and ability to do the task; this doesn’t mean that they have to be as good as you because you may be able to give them more time to do it than you have available.
Time. You must make sure that they have adequate time to complete the task, this means from the point of view of the actual time this task will take AND from the point of view of the other tasks they have to do as well. If you are their manager they may be reluctant to admit that they don’t have the time, so avoid leading questions (“You have enough time to do this, don’t you?”)
Authority; You must ensure that other people know that this person has been given your authority to complete this task, you may just tell people that they will need to provide this person with information/support or you may give them a written “licence” or acting rank. Without the authority the task will be much harder to perform which is unfair.
Responsibility: This is often the hardest one; you are delegating something that you have a responsibility to do, but if the person you delegate to has no responsibility to you for the successful completion of the task, you alone get into trouble for their failure. One of the best ways to give the responsibility is to make it very clear that you will share the credit for the outcome.
Practice the art of delegating
Willingness to delegate is a mark of a good manager. It is slightly counter-intuitive especially to a person new to management but the more you can delegate the more you can get done, so learn to love to delegate.
When you first become a manager or a team leader you will want to prove to the people who promoted you that you are worthy of their trust and your increased pay. The temptation is to try to do everything yourself because you know that you are reliable and, as they say, “if you want a job done properly, do it yourself”!
However, if you try to do everything yourself;
You will be grossly overworked, you will not be managing your people, many of your team will be under worked, you are responsible for everything that goes wrong and you will never be able to take time off.
Practising the art of delegation will have numerous benefits; you will have time to manage the team, you will have time to meet peers and senior managers, you will have confidence in things being done, you will be able to go home at a reasonable time most nights and not take work home, you will have time to develop your career, you will have the ability to “test” the ability and potential of your people and you will learn more about their strengths and weaknesses. In turn your people will have more fulfilling jobs, they will have a chance to prove their worth to you, they will learn and grow as employees.
When you are delegating always remember the following things;
- Ensure you give the employee a STAR
- Don’t delegate only to people you already trust, if you do this they will begin to resent your constant imposition and they will also be resented by others who will see them as your “favourites”
- Don’t delegate only jobs you personally dislike or are bad at or jobs that are lousy, this will be seen as laziness. Delegate jobs you enjoy, this will be seen as a gift