"I hate to delegate — it's easier if I just do it myself."
That's a recipe for a management disaster.
Leaders build a delegation strategy in everything they do. The more they delegate lower-level tasks, the more time they have to spend planning, leading, communicating, and growing their team.
Here are 5 simple actions to delegate more like a leader:
What will you delegate?
Effective delegation begins with defining your critical/difficult and non-critical/easy responsibilities. Make a quick list and then target the less critical and easier to accomplish items for your team members. We usually do the easier ones because we like them or they distract us from the more difficult ones. Be honest with yourself: what can you give away?
Who will you delegate to?
Andrew Carnegie once said, “The secret to success lies not in doing your own work, but in recognizing the right person to do it.” The key to finding the right person to delegate an assignment to is to match their skills and attitude to the task at hand. Sometimes you might have to stretch someone's abilities to fit the responsibility - go for it.
Clarify the result.
Show them what to do, how to do it, who to interact with, and most importantly, the deadline. The more clear you are with your team member, the more effective they will be in solving your problem. In addition, they might come up with an innovative way of solving it!
Make them accountable.
They own the activity. Make sure they understand the ramifications of dropping the ball or doing an incomplete delivery (this is one of the enemies of delegation). They can enlist others to be responsible for discrete areas of the activity, but in the end, they are accountable.
Follow up.
Monitor their progress during the span of the project — schedule touch-base meetings to review what they've accomplished and if they are floundering. Pick them up, reorient them, and ensure they are back on track. Always have them deliver first thing in the morning, so if they miss something, they have the rest of the day to fix it.
Action Step:
Take a lower-level task and delegate it this morning. Follow the steps and see what transpires — you might be surprised how easy it is.
We can go so much deeper into Delegation — but we wanted to give you a few quick, actionable steps to take away and use this week.
This is part two of a 4-part series on Leadership.
We've just launched a new program: The Four Elements of Transformational Leadership where we engage managers on how to effectively communicate, motivate, educate, and delegate their teams.
It’s a series of customized timely workshops for your team to focus on growing their leadership skills over a series of months. Why months?
People learn by doing, not just attending a single 8-hour offsite — our program ensures that each candidate learns, understands, and takes action after each 60-90 minute live session.
In addition, we include one-on-one coaching sessions for each candidate to follow up on their progress, answer any questions they might have, and reinforce the right behaviors so they apply what they've learned in their day-to-day interactions.