How to delegate effectively – leadership skills

You’ve probably heard this before, but let’s start with an important truth: you can’t do it all by yourself. Many have tried, trust me. As a leader, it may be tempting for various reasons to take on all the work, but there are really hardly any benefits to it.

Let’s explore how to delegate and the art of effective delegation.

Why it makes sense to delegate

“I’ll just do it myself. It will be quicker / better/ done my way.”… How many times have you thought that recently? It’s tempting to take on yourself anything that your team needs to tackle. Howerver, there is rarely any benefit to do so.

Why should you delegate? So many reasons for it – here are my favourite ones:

• you show your team you trust them with tasks that may be outside of their usual remit
• you give your team an opportunity to learn, to stretch their capabilities, to exhibit skills that may not have surfaced already
• by delegating, you have time to do your job and things that your company needs you to focus on
• you empower your team for the times you are not around, thus building your team’s resilience
• because the best leaders not only keep learning but also let others learn

It’s important to note that there are occassions when only you as the lead can be the doer. For example, if the decision needs to be made is at your level of authority, delegating it to someone else in your team may be more detrimental or demotivating than helpful to the team member tasked with the job.

The art of delegating

What does delegating effectively mean? It means that you are ok to let go off the control – that’s a big mindset shift. It means you are not micromanaging your team – no one likes that, we know this! And it shows you’ve thought the task through and you are clear with your expectations (we talked about setting expectations well in the post about keeping your team accountable – have a look).

If delegating is not your natural reaction to a (growing / manic / unpredictable) workload just yet, it may be because of the options mentioned above need a bit more work. If they do, I can’t recommend coaching enough to help figure out next steps.

Let’s go through an example on how to approach and do the delegation well.

“An unexpected request from your own manager has landed on your table, and you don’t have the capacity to complete it. The request needs to be completed in the next couple of days, and it’s quite important but not business critical. This means it does not require your – team lead’s – authority from start to finish. This means it is a good candidate for delegation to one of your team members.”

“Hi Team, I need some help with something”

Here’s what I would do:

• find out as much as possible about the request from your manager so that you can share the required the details with your team member; ask as many clarifying questions as needed
• establish if there is a specific format / content / length etc. that the final output needs to follow
• let the team know that there is a job to be done, and outline what is required. Ask who would have the desire and / or capacity to help with it (I learned this phrase from someone and I love it – to have the desire and / or capacity)
• set clear expectations what is required, why, who the audience is of the output, by when it needs to be done, in what format – any details that are necessary the person needs to adhere to
• be specific about the review process and timeline; e.g. I would ask that the first version of the work is shared with me in the next 2 days, when we would go through the review and next steps

What do you think about the above outline?

Image credit: Photo by Samuel Regan-Asante on Unsplash

Effective delegation means everyone wins

Effective and well executed delegation takes practice. And if it isn’t in your skills set just yet, you can absolutely learn it. I’m still honing this skill. I’m definitely better than I was but still noticing instances when I can or could do better.

My favourite aspect of it is when done right, the team member who you delegated the task to is proud of themselves. I love seeing the smile on their face and the sense of achievement they beam with. Everyone wins!

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Have you had a chance to practice delegation in your leadership journey? How did it go? What have you learned? Let us know in the comments!

Feature image: Photo by Lukas Kaufmann on Unsplash