In reality, you cannot and you will not be able to do everything on your own. Whether it is at home or the office, you need to recognize what tasks you can complete on your own and which ones you should delegate to others. It will save your time, and energy, develop others, and of course, it will motivate people to do things on their own. Let us go through the 7 Steps of Successful Delegation.
Not many leaders and managers can decide what and how to delegate professionally. I know many managers who try to delegate, but want such high control that they cannot get the best output out of their delegations.
Delegation is an important management skill that is worth spending time learning how to delegate tasks in skilled methods.
We accomplish all that we do through delegation – either to time or to other people.
Stephen Covey
Benefits of delegation
Poor delegation may confuse people, increase frustration and most importantly you may not be able to achieve what you aim for.
To achieve your desired result in a timely manner and give people free hand to use their creativity to achieve them, your delegation practice helps to a great extent.
People get motivated when they feel they are involved in the job rather than they are controlled, monitored, or pushed without giving them the freedom to think. Effective delegation is crucial for management and leadership succession.
Remember, as a manager your job is not doing the job on your own. Instead, you will use the available team and resources to get high results. Effective delegation techniques will help you get all you want, save your time, and create win-win conditions for both you and your team members.
Some vital factors can help in Successful delegation that draws potential results expected in a suitable fashion. The 7 Steps of Successful Delegation can help you achieve your goals quickly and effectively.
Define the tasks
Clearly defined tasks, scope, and degree of authority can aid subordinates to understand their boundaries in which they can use their authority to get the job done.
This will help employees to do their tasks without any fear of being controlled or demoralizing their ability to get things done.
Select the right team members
Choose a person that is the right fit to get the job done. Sometimes, you may see an individual is far behind in understanding the tasks required to achieve the results you aim for. This can cause immense difficulty and may need your time and all-time attention. Consider if the person is the right fit to do the job or not. Your time is important to see things from a result-oriented perspective rather than doing things on your own.
Since you want to get the job done and get benefit out of the results achieved, you also need to consider what benefit is for your team member before delegating a task to them. All my benefits will not help, consider a win-win situation for both.
Ability analysis and training
As a manager, your responsibility to assess each person under your team, and know if they are capable of handling the tasks or not. You cannot delegate if the person does not understand what needs to be done. Not everyone will be able to do what you expect them to achieve. Some members are outsmarting others. Do not expect the same level of performance from everyone.
Do not say, “Look at Jane, she joined the organization recently, but she is performing better than you”. Sentences like these can emotionally demoralize the person.
Learn which employees need training on how to accomplish the tasks. Train them, delegate to them, supervise them, and praise them for their achievements.
Delegate resources authority
Some people get confused about using resources. They do not know which resources they have the authority to use and which they need permission on. This may delay the process if the resource delegation is not openly defined. People may wait for your approval for petty things they can otherwise use without returning to you.
Many employees wait and cannot take their decision to take action because they do not know if they have the authority to use the important resources required to get the job done.
Describe the required results
Clearly define the outcome, and why this task has been delegated to the person. How the results will be measured, and what feedback system will be used? Define the quality standards that will be determined to access the completed job. Make sure they know how you intend to decide that the job is being successfully done.
Agree with the person on how the performed task will be monitored and measured. Failing to agree on this in advance will cause this monitoring to seem like interference or lack of trust.
Set the deadline
I am sure you don’t want anything to be revolving around a loop without knowing when and how the result needs to be achieved. Clearly plan the deadlines or ongoing duty measures. If there are prerequisites, explain that.
Commend people and give rational feedback
Regardless of whether the job is done properly or not, respect the person who has put effort to do the things for you. If the results are not as you expected, you may need to change the way it was delegated, the way it was communicated, or access if further training is needed by the person to get the job done properly.
Sometimes, you may come to know that the person is not the right fit for the job. In this case, politely take action to either switch his or her involvement or remove the responsibility given to that individual.
If you delegate in the right way, you will save a considerable amount of your efforts, and time, and you will get astonishing results which otherwise you could not achieve without the help of others.
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