Jul
04
2013
The art of delegation
By Julia Braggins.
Delegation is frequently done badly. People often see it as dumping. Tasks thrown at you with no briefing; tasks thrown at you without your agreement; tasks thrown at you that exceed your capability, skills or powers; tasks thrown at you with impossibly tight deadlines, or no guideline as to deadline or priority; your boss being unclear about what it is they actually want achieved; vagueness about money or resources; changing goal posts; vagueness about levels of delegated authority: the list of possible pitfalls is a long one.
But, as a manager, you certainly need to be able to delegate. You would not need a team if you could do everything yourself. Amongst other things, a delegated project can ‘grow’ a staff member, and provide a great opportunity for them to make a big success of it, have something new to put on the CV, AND get a job done for you. WIN:WIN.
Many new managers find delegating hard: do any of these sound like you?
- It takes too long. It’s quicker to do it myself.
- My team don’t have the experience to do a good enough job.
- She won’t/can’t do it like I did.
- She’ll make too many mistakes.
- It won’t be quite right.
- I don’t want to lose track of things.
Learning to trust colleagues, and to ‘let go’, can be hard. Settling for a ‘good enough’ job is hard, if you’re conscious of being a bit of a perfectionist. But sometimes it’s the right thing to do.
The five anchors of delegation
Here are some tips for good delegation
1. Describe the outcome. Make sure the person is clear about what you want them to achieve in the delegated task both in terms of the process as well as the outcome. If you have a lot of confidence in them, you may feel able to leave the process to them and simply describe the outcome, but if in doubt – explain.
For each task delegated specify:
- the desired outcome
- any timescales involved – both end times and critical path times
- the resources available
- any other colleagues who must/might be consulted/involved
- the processes and procedures to be followed
2. Provide the necessary tools. Make sure they have everything they need in order to do the task as well as possible. This may mean freeing up their time or helping them to reprioritise. It may mean training or who to go to for advice. It may mean simply ensuring that they have access to the only computer in the office when they need it!
3. Set up checkpoints. If the delegated task is new to your staff member, it is a good idea to ask them to come back and check with you before committing themselves or the organisation to any major decisions. How often you ask them to do this and in what level of detail will depend on how much confidence you have in them in the first place.
4. Follow up and coach. A delegated task means a learning opportunity for the staff member – otherwise it feels like dumping! Make sure that you support the learning process by reinforcing good work through praise and encouragement and developing weaknesses by positive suggestions and discussion.
5. Praise in public. If you have delegated something that went well, make sure you give credit to the person who did the work. If you have delegated something that went badly, make sure you take the blame yourself. This is part of what being ‘tough at the top’ means.
Find out more
This article is taken from the Centre’s published book Moving into management by trainer Julia Braggins. Available to buy online, this book focuses on what it is that makes a good manager and how you can lead an effective and motivated team.
This book complements our popular training course Moving into management.
Julia Braggins specialises in organisation management. She is a consultant, management development trainer, and researcher. She is also a non-managerial supervisor for chief executives and senior managers.
