Throughout your career you may have been frustrated by the challenges of delegation. It seems simple enough, doesn’t it? You tell your team to do something or to own something. You believe that you’ve given them what they need to be successful, only to be disappointed time and again. Why aren’t they achieving the desired results?
Delegation is a skill with 10 key elements that must be considered and mastered by a leader. When done well, the tasks and projects are successful and your team and organization thrive. When done incorrectly, you and your team live with frustration and disappointment. The organization gets stuck. Employees leave. Maybe you get reprimanded for your team’s failures. Finally, you’re left wondering, “what happened?”
1. Always understand how the things you’re delegating tie back to the mission and objectives of your organization.
If you can’t make the connection, your team certainly won’t. Assuming you’re able to make that connection, explain it. Gone are the days of “do it because I said so.” Employees, especially younger generations, want to know that what they do matters. They are mission driven. They want to connect with their job. They want to understand the big picture. Help them with that.
2. When considering what you should delegate, think about your activities in terms of value.
You should take on the highest value activities first. What are you best at? What activities drive most of your results? There’s a theory called Pareto’s Law that suggests we yield 80% of our results out of 20% of our efforts. Make sure that those 20% of your activities are of the highest value, then consider the rest of your activities for delegation. Remember you can’t always be an expert at everything. Great leaders surround themselves with talented people who can do things better than they can.
3. Delegating to the right person or team is critical and requires some consideration.
Consider skill sets, attitude, and motivations. The Carnegie Triangle suggests that skills and knowledge represent a mere 15% of success rates, and 85% is attitude. If your choice comes down to someone with a great skill set, lots of experience but a poor attitude and lack of motivation versus someone with less experience and skills but a positive attitude and is highly motivated, consider choosing the latter. It may require more time to impart the necessary skills and knowledge, but in the long run they’ll be more successful.
4. Clarity in business is everything.
When providing instructions, paint a clear picture of what success looks like. Rather than just saying, “Write this report,” provide more detail. You could say, “Write this report and be sure to include these five details. It should be no longer than two pages, and deliver it to me by 5 p.m. tomorrow so that I can have time to review it before I meet with senior leadership to gain approval for our next big project.” The second example provides far more clarity and even provides context about the importance of the work that you’re delegating.
5. Deadlines matter.
If you tell someone to complete something “next week” that could be any time from 8 a.m. Monday to 5 p.m. Friday. If you really want it at a specific time on a particular day, spell it out.
6. Discuss consequences if the project isn’t done on time, within budget, or to your expectations.
If the project isn’t completed according to your instructions, how will it impact the person or team you’ve delegated it to? How will it impact you? The department? The organization? The client? The stakeholders? The project itself? There are ramifications for so many entities.
7. Put it in writing.
The longer the project and the more complex it is, the more is at stake. Putting it in writing and following up to ensure clarity gives you far better chance at success.
8. Inspect what you expect.
When you delegate, you’re not throwing it over the wall and forgetting about it until the project is due. If you do, you’re in for a nasty surprise at the end. Make sure that you establish progress benchmarks and check in with your team at appropriate intervals. Corrections may be needed and come deadline time it will be too late.
9. Establish benchmarks.
It can be challenging, because nobody wants to be a micro-manager. It’s critical to understand if you’re dealing with someone that’s relatively new to their role and industry versus someone you’d consider a rockstar or somewhere in between. In general, the newer the person or team, the less you know and trust them, the more frequent these progress benchmarks should be. And for the rockstars, the less frequent they should be. You still must spell out expectations and offer resources. But the rockstars know how to navigate these situations, so give them room to do so.
10. To be effective at delegating there must be accountability.
You must hold people accountable to perform. Never accept anything less than what you expect. By holding people accountable, you will build trust throughout the organization, ensure success, and protect the organization. If you screw up but don’t hold yourself accountable, nobody else buys in when you try to do the same to them. So don’t be that person. Own your mistakes as well as your wins.
Delegation takes practice and requires care. Master it and you’ll be a true leader, not just a boss.
Steve DeVries is a certified business and executive coach with FocalPoint. Visit stevedevries.focalpointcoaching.com for more information.
