Delegation – is the assignment of responsibility to another person for the purpose of carrying out specific job-related activities


  • A shift of decision-making authority from one organizational level to another


  • This means that employees or subordinates can act and initiate independently and they assume responsibility with you for certain tasks because it is a shift of decision-making authority from one organizational level to another, however managers still remain accountable what the subordinates do

There are three elements of delegation:

  • Authority – power of a person to use and allocate the resources efficiently, to take decisions and to give orders as to achieve the organizational objectives.
  • Responsibility – having control over someone
  • Accountability – being accountable


Why mostly managers do not delegate? There are lots of reasons that include:

  • Managers like particular jobs and think that no one can do it as good as their own
  • They do not understand the need to delegate thinking that it takes too much time when in fact it actually saves time if practiced properly
  • They do not know how to delegate
  • They lack confidence for themselves and their team


As a matter of fact, when delegation is not being practiced effectively, it has its own consequences:

  • Information and decision making not shared by the group
  • Leaders become tired out – because they do it all
  • When leader leaves the group, no one has the experience to carry on with the tasks
  • Group morale becomes low and people become frustrated and feel powerless
  • The skills and knowledge of the group are concentrated in a few people – no opportunities for career growth
  • New members don’t find any ways to contribute to the work of the group


However, in delegating there are OBSTACLES as you practice it along the way:

It may lead to MICROMANAGEMENT

control over everything all aspects of the job or tasks; when u start micromanaging it’s like having too much to do which leads you to have lesser time for yourself and other important things

Lack of support

when you delegate, it’s not just giving the work to your subordinate to get it done, it is a process. So both of you must be fully supportive of the efforts in order to be successful.

Failure to plan

taking the time to follow the steps for delegation can avoid any pitfalls that might be overlooked

Lack of communication

As we adapt with the new normal, delegating is harder when you aren’t physically in the same place easy to miscommunicate when you're going fast and emails and texts are flying all around. Emails can cross in the middle and cause confusion. There are two sub challenges in communication especially in remote set up:

  1. Harder to know each other - no opportunity to casually fall into a conversation; those organic connections that arise naturally which helps build rapport and trust – which are important elements of successful delegation
  2. Lesser informal interactions - miss nonverbal communication, facial expressions or body language


WHAT to delegate?

First step will be to track your activities for a week or two, track what you do all the time. Make a list or spreadsheet of all your activities or what you actually do. Then let the flowchart below be your guide: 

 

What NOT to delegate?

It is critical to remember that all tasks are not equal meaning all tasks cannot be delegated. Two examples of tasks that cannot be delegated:






  

                  Personal Credibility






             

             Discipline of Employees








WHEN to delegate?

  • When the task offers valuable training to an employee
  • When an employee has knowledge about the task
  • When the task is recurring and employees should be prepared or trained
  • When the task is of low priority and managers have high priority tasks


HOW to delegate?

 The process of delegation is through IDEALS.


I – Introduce the task

                Being able to determine tasks to keep and delegate is a good start. You also have to think who you should delegate the tasks to. In order come up with the best fit, here are some tips:

  • Look for development opportunities for your employees – Think about your employees. Look for tasks or projects that you could see could be great opps for your EEs, as well as ones that fit in specifically with their career aspirations. Also, you have to consider a team member who could do out without becoming overwhelmed with extra work.
  • Consider the employee’s goals, skills, and interests – think of the person you are delegating to. Does it fit into their career development goals? Is this something they will enjoy? Or something they’ve done before? Knowing this will help you think about how much supervision they’ll need. Don’t make the mistake of giving someone a stretch assignment and just letting them run with it. Make sure you let them know you’re available to answer questions and schedule a number of check-ins.
  • Link the task to their career goals – explain why they have are doing the job.


D – Demonstrate clearly

                One way could be to show examples of previous work so that the person has sufficient amount of data and knowledge about the task. Explain objectives and make sure the person understand the goal of the task. You may also discuss timelines and set deadlines.

E – Ensure understanding

                Put the task in context. When you talk to the employee, make sure you communicate not just the task, but also the context. It is important so they will understand how the task will fit into the bigger picture and make decisions accordingly. For example, if you’re asking your employee to gather information on competitors, it’s helpful for them to know this is for an internal trading for junior employees or if it’s information you’re gathering for higher positions. Communicate in a polite, nice, precise and simple way manner. It is good to ask for clarifications whether it the way of relaying instructions is understandable or not. The employee you are delegating to needs to be committed completely, he/she cannot just accept the task and run away from it if they cannot do it anymore. That is the reason why you have to clarify both side’s preference and develop an understanding of how to work together.


A – Allocate authority, information, and resources

                As the person having the utmost authority, grant authority to the employee to determine processes and procedures. Make sure to provide access to all information sources as well as provide appropriate training ( a little bit of detailed training if necessary) to ensure success.

L – Let go

                After a point of time, you need to let go. Do not hold on or totally control the circumstance. Step back and let the employee do the work. Do not allow for reverse delegation, it should not be that you have delegated to someone and then that someone delegates the work back to you.

S – support and monitor

                Schedule follow up meetings to review progress as long as you are not making it almost everyday. When they come up with a problem, help and guide them since you are the person who has the domain knowledge about that task to encourage problem solving. Set up tracking systems in tracking your projects. If you set up ground rules for the best way to communicate with each other about projects in a way of track, you’re gonna have a better handle on what your employees are up to and they are going to feel more secure about the work they are doing.


Lastly, end with recognition. Praise progress and completion to recognize their achievement. 


The good news is that once you delegate some things off your plate, you’ll free up time to work on things that are best fit for you, and you're doing this will also help in your employees grow and learn new things. That’s a win-win and that’s why it’s such a great use of your time to see what you can delegate and what you’ll keep and when you use a process, it’s easy. Hence, delegation benefits all, manager/supervisor, employees and the organization.


BUILDING SKILLS

Delegation is not just about getting jobs done as soon as possible, it can also help coach employees to build skills and promote career growth. As much as you want the job done efficiently, mistakes are inevitable. When you delegate a task and the employee doesn’t do it very well and then you think as a manager, it is your job to fix it. It is not. As a manager, your job is to use the tasks you delegate as moments to coach so you get a better work product over time and employees build new skills. Here are the steps on what to do and what not to do:



Do not fix it yourself – It is better to recognize that there has been a mistake and you want to help your employee learn from it.


Analyze the root cause - Is the tone of the document wrong? Is the power-point missing the necessary structure or flow? For example, if they keep having problems with co-workers that they need to influence, maybe they need to upgrade their approach.

Set up some time for a coaching conversation - doing all of this takes a lot more time than just correcting the problem yourself. But this is essential when you’re working remotely and you’re not right there to help or answer questions. You need your remote people to be able to do their work with far less supervision than if you were in person. And taking the time now will lessen the likelihood of them making the same mistake over and over again.

Discuss the assignment and outcome – discuss what you expected and what the gap is and ask them how they approached and think of it. You may find that the problem with deliverable was really a problem in communication or may it be if there is a skill gap or the person did not have enough time.


 Agree with actions – agree on how your employee will approach similar projects in the future. May it be they need to ask more questions, get some training or give themselves more time.



Lastly, end with debriefing. Schedule a meeting with your employee to debrief. Ask your employee to think about what went well and what did not go so well in the project. This is always a good practice because it sets up the practice of continuous improvement. Then, what skills did they sharpen and what skills did they use for the first time? Then, what skills and experiences would they like to continue to build to help advance towards their career goals? It should motivate them to try it again and to improve. Moving forward, you can talk about strategies and next steps.

“Coaching and debriefing after delegation mistakes take longer than fixing it yourself, but it’s worth it when you help your employees grow and you get better work from them in the future. You will benefit from their increased motivation and they will benefit from your coaching.”