delegating

Delegating tasks to others is a skill that can empower your team and improve the quality of the work your team delivers. It is also a skill that can be misused. I’ve seen overutilization of delegation where the manager in charge delegated everything to his team, and provided no direction, instruction, or oversight. When the project team was working 80-hour weeks, and struggling to meet project goals, the manager had no idea. Underutilization, on the other hand, involves not delegating enough or not delegating at all. The reason we give ourselves for not delegating is almost always because we think it would be easier to do it ourselves. The truth is, everyone will get more done, work quality will improve, and skills will grow if tasks are delegated effectively. How can you learn to delegate effectively and get the most out of yourself and your team?

Like any other workplace skill, learning how you can effectively delegate involves practice, patience, and work. We talk about delegating in the context of providing tasks and responsibilities to direct reports. Direct reports are the individuals who report to you, and you are responsible for managing their work and developing their skills. 

How and what you delegate can vary based on your management style, the strengths and skill set of your team, the project you are working on, and what needs to get done. There is not one best way to delegate, it depends on the situation.

However, the reasons we give ourselves for not delegating are usually pretty common and follow a few themes:

• It will be faster if I do it
• It will be better quality if I do it
• I don’t have time to show someone else how to do it
• I can’t decide what to delegate

The manager who struggles to delegate is often overwhelmed with tasks to complete and doesn’t have the time to teach someone else how to do the work. Another reason for not delegating is not wanting to give up control and quality of work. When delegating is effectively used and work is distributed fairly, new and better outcomes can be reached.

If you’re a manager who struggles to delegate, you will find that you and your team can reach your fullest potential when you effectively delegate.

How to overcome common reasons for not delegating:

Reason 1: Lack of trust in the team

Give your team a chance to build trust with you. You can do this if the trust has not been built or has already been damaged. Provide deadlines and due dates, explicit and clear instructions, and templates to get the job done. Measure how well the task is done through check-in points, and provide continuous feedback throughout the task. 

For example: You need to research potential vendors for a new project, but you don’t have the time due to another deadline, and need to pass this work to a direct report. This vendor research work is low visibility at this point, so it is a great opportunity for someone else to learn the task, but the new project is very important to you, and you want to make sure this work is done as thoroughly as you would do it. But this is a completely new task for your direct report, and you’re not sure if they will be successful due to previous performance.

You provide a list of resources, a short set of instructions on what to evaluate for vendors, a template of evaluation factors that you normally use, and schedule short 5-minute check-in meetings three-times a week to monitor the progress. If the work isn’t progressing the way you’d like, you have an opportunity to provide correctional instruction.

Reason 2: Lack of skills on the team

As a manager, it is part of your role to build your team’s skills. People grow by doing new things. You will grow by delegating, and your team will grow by doing tasks they haven’t done before. Recommend training or furthering education opportunities to supplement any knowledge you can share with the team. Your team won’t get better unless you give them a chance to. 

For example: A vendor has provided a new product release for customer acceptance testing to you and your team. Because you consider yourself an expert in this particular kind of testing, you usually complete the testing on your own. However, your responsibilities have grown, so your time is limited to complete this testing to the level of scrutiny you’d like, and you have to show someone else how to do it.

Because the direct report you’re giving this responsibility to has never done this task before, you share the templates and tools you used to complete testing previously as a starting point for them to practice. You consider how you learned about this kind of testing (for example, books, articles, videos), and share those resources too. This way, they can learn on their own.

You ask the vendor for assistance. Even though you know how to do the testing, you don’t have the time, and the vendor might be able to assist you in knowledge sharing on this topic.

Finally, you schedule regular and short check-ins with the direct report to monitor their progress and provide feedback on the task.

Reason 3: Lack of time to delegate or to teach others

The solution here is simple – you need to make the time. This is an important part of your job description, and it is important for the careers of the people who work for you. Be sure to delegate complete tasks and the authority with them. 

For example: You have been leading a recurring weekly status meeting with key stakeholders for over a year. You recognize that you can pass it off to one of your direct reports because you started leading this meeting when you were at the same stage in your career as they are now.

Delegate complete ownership of the purpose of that meeting. This includes scheduling the meeting, assembling the agenda, facilitating the meeting, following up with actions, the responsibility to build relationships with the attendees of the meeting, and the authority to add or remove participants, and cancel or move the meeting.

Delegation frees up time, develops people, motivates others, and gets more done. You will develop your management skills as much as your direct reports will grow in their careers. In the end, your work and your team’s work will reach a greater potential when you effectively delegate.