Leadership and The Fine Art of Delegation

The art of delegation is largely about breaking each and every job into workable components and entrusting that a group of competent individuals will be able to complete the work. Yes it does depend on having a competent team involved. Delegation arguably requires a mutual level of understanding of all the things that need to be completed and when they should be completed. It is argued that delegation skills are rarely well understood, one of the problems being that an effective worker can be ineffective at assigning responsibilities to members of a team that they now run. Yet we all know that effective delegation helps reducing the process time and elicits collective brilliance from the team. This it can be seen the heart of the team functioning as a well oiled machine.

Letting go of the details can be a difficult thing for any boss to do. We often try to do everything because we think that we are the only person to understand all of the details or perhaps that no one else can do it as well as us, yet this is all too often the wrong approach. In fact asking assistance from others is not demonstrating a weakness, but instead a sign of self assurance and indeed really a sign of strong management and leadership. Yet many managers remember how effective they were at completing the task at hand and feel the need to jump right in, yet they should not – the task is one for their team to complete, not them alone. In fact letting go of the details actually empowers you to take things to the next level; it is about leadership and understanding a bigger picture.

As a manager it is important to establish a positive work environment where employees are not paralyzed by fear of failure, you must act a guide in moving projects forwards. It is important to let honesty be the face of your management style and delegation is about leveraging everyone’s true potential. Alongside the glory tasks sometimes there is a need to find people willing to take on unpleasant tasks, yet they must be rewarded for it, even by a simple ‘thank you’.

Delegating work to subordinates and team members is, of course, one of the most important aspects of any manager’s function. It eases the workload of the team and helps the people acquire new skills as necessary.  Leaders should be very careful about the way they delegate work to team members, it should be done with team goals in mind. Give a clear picture of what needs to be done, ensure the people undertaking the work know exactly what outcome is expected. Be clear about the deadlines involved and gain a clear vision of the intended outcome.
Wherever possible delegate the whole task, instead of assigning bits of it to different members of the team.  Make them responsible for completion, it shows trust builds the relationship. Overall it is best to delegate in terms of objectives or deliverables rather than procedures or tasks.