Before you delegate, consider ….
Most people want added responsibilities.
- Most people want to learn.
- Your short-term training investments will pay off in the long term.
- People will help you if you approach them in the right way.
Do delegate routine activities, such as:
- Fact-finding assignments
- Preparation of rough drafts of reports
- Problem analysis and suggested actions
- Collection of data for reports
- Photocopying, printing, collating
- Data entry
Do trust people to do well.
Don’t delegate what you can eliminate.
- If you shouldn’t be doing an activity, then perhaps you shouldn’t be giving the activity away to others.
- Once you delegate, don’t be an over-the-shoulder leader.
- Don’t abdicate, delegate! Provide help, guidance and support along the way.
Three Delegation Tips (Harvard Business Review 9/21/10)
1. Develop others through delegation.
Delegation isn’t just a word – it’s an important action in any organization. By delegating, others are able to experience challenging work and develop their skills and abilities. Challenged employees are, more often than not, engaged employees.
2. Tackle big by thinking small.
Bigger, more complex projects can be broken into smaller, more manageable pieces. Who can do what pieces? You can help your managers do this, while also helping them think about which other staff is best suited for these component tasks of the larger projects.
3. Model the way.
If you delegate important tasks to your managers, you’re showing your trust in them and empowering them at the same time. Learning by example, they’ll do the same for their own teams!
REMEMBER: Someone else can do the task, but you’re still responsible for the completion of it and for managing the delegation process.
Learn more? Delegation for Success
