Mastering Art Of Delegation

As Business Owners, would you like to:

• Do more work in less time?
• Visualize a bigger scenario of business?
• Focus on what others cannot do?
• Avoid cycle of burnout?

Then, for sure- Delegation offers a powerful solution!

It is the ART you must aim to Master!

It is high time you empower yourself as well as your team with energy, ideas, and ownership.

“The art of Delegation is one of the skills any Entrepreneurs must master”

Richard Branson

Connotation Of Delegation

Delegation is the assignment of authority to another person (normally from a manager to a subordinate) to carry out specific activities.

It is the process of distributing and entrusting work to another person.

Delegation is one of the core concepts of management leadership.

The process involves managers deciding which work they should do themselves and which work should be delegated to others for completion.

In management, delegating refers to sharing or transferring responsibilities,

It typically happens from a superior (or an employer) to a subordinate (or an employee) of others.

Delegating is an important trait for those who work in teams, and trust plays a critical role in its success.

Preliminaries For Initiating Delegation

1. Define What You Need

• Make sure to define what is important.
• Define your expectations.
• Detail the tasks within each role.

2. Match Tasks With Strengths

• Identify your team members’ strengths and weaknesses.
• Leverage their strengths to improve productivity.
• Give team members the freedom to do it their way after they understand the goals.
• Have faith in your team.
• As a leader, it is better to give your people the chance to do something in their style than to force them to follow your way.
• As an inevitable corollary, your team will become more creative, responsible and passionate.

Understand how important your team is, lift it up to realize each member’s potential, and allow them to work toward strengths.

Main Elements Of Delegation

Authority

• Rights and powers are delegated. Authority is the power of a person to order his subordinates and act on the merits of his post.
• In an organization, authority varies according to job status. The reason for this is that there exists an interrelationship between job positions and levels of the organization.

Responsibility

• The duties and tasks to be performed are delegated.
• It is the responsibility of a subordinate to perform the duty properly.

Accountability

• Reporting on the discharge of responsibility or the use of authority is accountability that cannot be delegated.
• Accountability is the accountability for the end result of a job.

Guidelines For Delegating Tasks

1. Ensure that the objectives are clear and that the person taking on the additional responsibility has the tools to do it well.
2. Ask for any concerns and be open to suggestions and ideas.
3. Provide a guideline on the amount of time and money to be spent on the delegated task.
4. Play to the individual’s strength.
5. For long-term delegated tasks, follow up to keep your workers on the right track.

Rationale For Delegation

• To free yourself up to do other tasks.
• To have the most qualified person making the decisions.
• To seek another qualified person’s perspective on an issue.
• To develop someone else’s ability to handle the additional assignments judiciously and successfully.

Requisite Leadership Qualities

A good leader must possess the following basic skills for effective delegation:

• Communication: 
  There should be clear articulation of what needs to be done
• Trust: 
  The people to whom authority is to be delegated to should be well trusted.
• Honesty: 
  You should be open to the team on what you expect.

A set of Questions before Undertaking Delegation:

• What tasks are for delegation?
• Who is the most effective person to delegate to?
• What expectations do I have for this task?
• And after work is completed, what are the available methods of task evaluation?

Why To Delegate

• Delegating some of the tasks to employees can improve task efficiency and benefit the organization.
• Delegating can actually increase the income and overall efficiency of organization. 
• It helps to optimize the performance of the group.

When To Delegate

Symptoms Necessitating Delegation Are:

1. You simply do not have time to complete all the tasks laid out before you.
2. Someone else at the organization is better suited for a task.
3. You would like to help a team member gain more experience in a certain area.
4. New more important priorities surface, and you’d like to re-structure your time.

Why Hesitate To Delegate?

• If someone else does it, my value in the organization will decrease.
• It’s quicker and easier to do it myself.
• No one can do it as well as I can.
• I have no one to delegate to.
• It’s my job to lead by example and do every task.
• I tried delegating before and it was a disaster.

Delegation Is an Art

Here Is – How To Perform To Do It Better!

Delegation can be accomplished by following these steps:

• Always provide feedback-Positive or Negative.
• Ensure perfect monitoring.
• Motivate employees to perform.
• Delegate the right activities.
• Provide guidance when necessary.
• Give authority to employees to get the job done.
• Have the right disposition to delegation.
• Consider the demonstrated skills and interests of your people.
• Set clear goals and create analytics.

Principles Of Effective Delegation

When delegation is done properly with due consideration and justification, it helps foster a climate of trust and creates growth opportunities for your employees.

5 Principles To Aid Process Of Effective Delegation

• Determine what you will delegate.
• Choose the right person to delegate the task to. 
• Clarify the desired results. 
• Clearly define the employee’s responsibility and authority.
• Establish a follow- up meetings.

Remember clearly, having created a solid process for delegation, stick to it.

Avoid reverse delegation at any cost.

How to Delegate

Steps to ensure effective and efficient Delegation, and optimum utilisation of time are:

Step 1: List Your Responsibilities as a Leader

Take into account:

• All the tasks and job responsibilities.
• Your responsibilities as a leader
• Long-term projects and goals.
• Determine what to delegate. 
• Start at a high level with a list of monthly or quarterly goals that you want to accomplish.
• Break these larger goals down into smaller steps, listing the daily and weekly tasks needed to achieve the bigger objectives.
• List the tasks you do frequently, on a daily or weekly basis.
• This might include pulling reports, scheduling, answering emails, or conducting staff meetings and conference calls.

Step 2. Choosing Delegation Authority

Level wise delegation authority scale means is delineated as:

• A task that team leaders must complete on their own. .
• Team members could assist them in doing if needed.
• A task that team leaders as well as other team members can do.
• A task that team members should do.
• Is a task that team members must do.

Step 3: Determining What to Delegate

Based on the Level of Authority for Delegation rating you gave each responsibility, organize your tasks and responsibilities into the appropriate category.

Step 4: Deciding Whom to Delegate

Consider the following factors while deciding Delegation:

Why Encourage Delegation?

Delegation gives time and energy to do more important tasks.

• Delegation empowers the team.
• Effective delegation gives the team a chance to excel in a task thereby the pleasure of seeing your team grow and succeed.
• Delegating encourages creativity and innovation.
• Delegation is crucial for personal improvement.
• Delegation is important for leadership succession.
• Delegation strengthens the organization.

Benefits Of Delegation Are

To delegate is to assign responsibility and authority to someone else in order to complete the task at hand by retaining the overall responsibility for its success. 

1. Efficiency
Efficiency is ensured when the function is transferred to people with skills that match the role. You can plan and strategize for the next step.
This will ensure you have adequate time for planning, less stress, and improved efficiency

2. Development
Team leaders have skills and abilities. The best way to develop a team is to teach them the new skills Then, delegate duties to them for them to utilize the already acquired skills.

3. Empowerment
To empower is to allow others to become experts at what they do even if they surpass your ability. This encourages the personal development of team members leading to overall team success.

4. Leadership
A good leader does not do; he plans and coaches. When tasks are completed, new tasks can be taken with maximum confidence.

5. Improved Decision Making
Delegation always leads to better decisions. This is because supervisors are closer to the scene. They only need to be empowered is to make justified judgments. 

6. Managers are Relieved from Heavy Workload:
When a lot of duties are handled by one person, inefficiency creeps in resulting in wrong decisions that negatively influence the company operations. Delegation relieves the managers from the heavy workload.

7. Ensures Speedy Decisions: 
Quick decision-making is made possible as unnecessary bureaucratic channels are broken. On-the-spot decisions save the organization a lot of time initially wasted.

8. Builds Morale and Trains Subordinates: 
When subordinates are allowed to make decisions on their own, they accept responsibility. This, in turn, improves their self-confidence and overall morale.

9. Creates a Formal Organizational Structure:
When authority is delegated, a formal structure for the organization is also created.

Delegation Of Authority In Management

An Operational Checklist

1. Prepare a plan.
2. Divide a big project into smaller, achievable tasks.
3. Review the workforce and time constraints.
4. Determine which tasks are appropriate for the employees within the team.
5. Consider the qualifications, experience, past performance and any training history.
6. Distribute the assignments by utilising suitable communication channels.
7. Provide clear instructions. 
8. Make your expectations clear from the beginning.
9. Set the deadlines, milestones and furnish all details of the expected results.
10. Grant proper authorisation.
11. Some processes require adequate permissions and decision-making power.
12. To be able to do that, the manager needs to know your suppliers. Additionally, they should have the authority to negotiate the prices and arrange for the delivery.
13. Follow up on tasks.
14. Ensure that the job is proceeding according to your expectations by seeking periodic updates.
15. The employees should be required to report to you regularly so that you can solve any issues.
16. Make sure you have some contingency plans in place in case something goes wrong.
17. Analyse the results and provide feedback.
18. By analysing the results of delegated tasks to gauge the effectiveness of your team members.
19. Differences in delegation levels.
20. Avoid reverse delegation at any cost.

In Retrospect

Delegation underpins a complex and critical style of management.

It delivers efficiency to the management process of the organization.

To accomplish a higher scale of Delegation, the organization traverses 5 important and notable Stages.

The onset of the Delegation process augurs well for the organization to place itself on a profit trajectory replete with efficiency and control.

“For everything, we don’t like to do, there is someone out there who is really good, wants to do it, and will enjoy it”

Josh Kaufman