Effective delegation is the key to freeing your time and resources and concentrate on more important things. But the most of the time, in modern business, delegation is avoided because it creates a lot of overhead for the person delegates the task (delegator). The reason for this is that most of the times delegator and delegatee have not have seen eye to eye!
What Delegation Is?
Delegation is one of the core principles of leadership and the one that if done with intention and able caution, can reassure accountability, motivation, continuation, succession and on the job training of people in an organization. Furthermore, it is one task that can help a leader to achieve a better focus on the important tasks, free him/her valuable time and resources and help him/her in achieving enhanced productivity levels.
The delegation is a working relationship between two (or more) people, for the accomplishment of one or more tasks or activities. More specifically:
Delegation is the assignment of responsibility or authority to another person (normally from a manager to a subordinate) to carry out specific activities. (Wikipedia: Delegation)
Delegation presupposes a hierarchical or semi-structured form of organization, and only a few times is related to a personal, a friendly or a social relationship (in these situations “delegation” it is related to trust, integrity and the volunteer help of someone by other(s) people!).
When Is It “Safe” To Delegate
When should you delegate? Well, there are a lot of possible options. The most suitable ones include:
- When there is someone who can perform it.
- When there is not enough time for you to act on it, and there is someone who can complete the task!
- When there is enough time to delegate the task, without creating a problem in the final output or to the person you assign the task to.
- When you consider this task would enhance or grow the capability of the delegee (on-the-job-training!).
- When the particular activity does not relate to a core or strategic personal or professional objectives.
When Is The Delegation Effective?
The delegation is one of the core components of effective leadership and should not be confused with abdication.
Effective delegation is able to free valuable resources (money, time, focus on the important things, etc) and help someone achieve his/her goals, while the ineffective delegation (when someone tries to maintain a strict management and control over the delegee and the implementation of the activity) falls into micromanagement!
Effective delegation means:
- Clarity of objective(s) (what is expected as output),
- Responsibility & accountability (who is going to do what),
- Clear defined time frame (when it is expected to be accomplished), and
- Clear communication channels (how someone can communicate with responsible persons to ask something or clarify something and who he or she is going to be).
All these components should be considered carefully by a leader, a project manager or a delegator before he/she decides to delegate a task to someone else!
Question: How do you delegate a task? How do you make the delegation process more effectively?
