A school principal asking why she gets so many text messages from her staff when she is out of the office. An executive director of a not for profit organization wonders how to help his managers execute better. An executive wondering why things don’t happen as he expected. Delegation is the common theme.
Delegation is one of the most important skills of a leader to ensure that people are successful at their work, they continue to grow, and you get buy-in to the results of projects. The question is how you as a leader make sure that this is a successful experience for everyone.
Talking of delegation brings up instant reactions in managers; it is faster to do it myself, if I give it to someone else, I will have to redo it anyway, I have the information and skills already. This is a great opportunity to ask yourself; are you ready to put your ego aside and give up control. Are you willing to accept that they will do the job differently, maybe not as well, but perhaps better?
Thinking about some simple steps will assist you in getting successful results from delegated projects or tasks.
Identify the problem or outcome: The most important step in delegation is the identification of the problem to be solved, opportunity to be taken, or challenge to be met. Taking the symptoms back to root cause or clearly defining the outcome to be achieved is both challenging and critical for success. Fixing only the symptoms guarantees that the problem will pop up again and being unclear on outcomes frequently results in discovering that different opinions exist on what success looks like. Or that you haven’t considered all the people with interests in the situation.
Decide if it should be delegated: There are great reasons to delegate, but also some situations that involve confidentiality, crisis, or (truly) skill sets. Look to delegation to create a culture of accountability and ownership and free you to spend more time on the important issues that require your particular skills.
Identify who is needed: Once everyone is in agreement on what needs to be done, you need to consider what skills are required and who has those skills. Is this an opportunity for someone to develop new skills? Putting new skills to work in a project is one of the best ways to develop people.
Be clear on the boundaries: What are the resources required and/or committed? Have you discussed what decision-making authority you are delegating? What are the important milestones to be met? Agree up front on what the communication and update requirements are. You need to give people enough freedom to stretch them while providing the support to make them successful.
Ensure ongoing feedback: Make the time to review progress and provide coaching as the project progresses.
Celebrate Success: Make sure that the people get the public credit for a job well done. Great delegation means that you help your people be successful and their success creates success for you.
Taking the time to prepare yourself and your people through effective delegation practices will ensure a better end result and motivated skilled people as an added bonus.
