Under-delegation is a common problem among business leaders. There are a variety of reasons why leaders don’t delegate tasks. Some leaders are concerned they’ll overload their team, or seem less competent to other members of the team if they pass their workload to others. Others struggle with delegation because they don’t like letting go of control, or don’t trust other team members to complete tasks as well as they can.
Whatever the reasons, failure to properly delegate can be a big problem for both leaders and their teams. Delegating doesn’t just reduce the leader’s workload. It is also an effective way to build a culture of trust in an organization, generating engagement and adding skills within the team. If you’re looking for ways to integrate more delegation into your leadership approach, here are some best practices to ensure you’re getting the most out of it.
1. Delegate to your team’s strengths (and your weaknesses).
Every employee has areas where they excel and others where there is still room for improvement. That’s as true of people in leadership as it is for individual contributors. One of the greatest benefits of building a team is that it gives you access to people who are strong in the areas where you’re not. Choosing the right tasks to delegate—and the right people to delegate them to—helps you take full advantage of your team’s power.
When deciding which tasks to delegate, ask yourself: which ones would someone else on the team do even better than I could? These are the logical first items to pass along to employees. In a similar vein, consider the work that you like doing the least. Some may be things only you can take care of, like performance reviews and similar team management type of tasks. Otherwise, there’s no reason you need to hang on to tasks you don’t enjoy—there’s a strong chance someone else on the team will find that work more fulfilling and interesting.
2. Be clear with your expectations and deadlines.
For a team member to excel with a delegated task, they need to know what excellence looks like and how success for that assignment will be defined. This starts with giving them a clear and firm timeline for completion. It’s smart to make this deadline slightly ahead of when it needs to be completed, in case you need to give feedback or request changes.
You can also minimize the chance that you’ll need to make changes by clearly outlining the requirements and standards for the task in question. If it’s a task that was given to you by a client or member of leadership, pass along the full description and requirements as they were given to you. For tasks that you’ve defined, provide this same kind of detail about what you’re looking for from the completed work.
3. When assigning tasks, focus more on the what and the why than the how.
The most efficient way to delegate is to assign tasks to team members who already know how to do that kind of work. There are times you may want to assign an employee a new task, like if you’re grooming them for a leadership role or testing how well they can learn a new process. That said, in most cases, the aim of delegation is to ensure tasks are completed to the same standard as if you did that work yourself, but more quickly than you can achieve on your own.
In these cases, you can assume that the employee already has a process for completing this type of work—and it may be an even better way than you would have gone about it. Expecting them to follow a predetermined set of steps can prevent them from fully utilizing their skills and make them feel like they’re being micromanaged. It also takes up more of your time, preventing the delegation from being the time-saver that it should be.
Instead of detailing how the employee should approach the assigned work, focus on the results you’re looking for, how the task fits into the broader picture of the business, and the ultimate goals for the task or project. This gives the employee the context they need to excel at the task, without imposing constraints on their process.
4. Consider workload and career goals when choosing who to delegate work to.
It isn’t easy to say “no” to the boss. Some employees are skilled at setting and maintaining these types of boundaries, but many will feel uncomfortable turning down an assignment given to them by their manager if it is at all within their capability to do so. If that employee already has a full to-do list, you could inadvertently set them up for overwork and potential future burnout if you add work to that pile. An employee who is overloaded is also more likely to rush projects and make mistakes, which could negatively impact the quality of the completed work.
This is why it’s important to consider an employee’s current responsibilities and workload when you’re delegating assignments. Along with their current role, factor in their aspirations for the future. Someone who’s actively working toward a promotion into leadership will likely be more willing to work a bit of extra time if it means getting hands-on experience with work that will help lead them toward that goal. Conversely, someone who is happy in their current position may get frustrated if you’re frequently assigning them tasks outside that job description, especially if it means they have to stay at the office longer than they’d planned.
5. Give both feedback and credit to the person who did the work.
Acknowledging the hard work your employees do is a great way to boost their engagement, company loyalty, and overall satisfaction with their work. When someone excels at a delegated task, show your appreciation by recognizing their success. This can happen at the one-on-one level with a simple thank you, or on a bigger scale by talking them up within the team or to other leaders. Not only will this help to boost their career and reputation in the workplace, but they’ll also be more likely to take on extra work for you in the future if they know you’ll show gratitude in return.
When the employee doesn’t quite get the assignment right, don’t just ignore it or fix things yourself. Delegating work can be a powerful coaching tool to help employees develop their skills and knowledge, and giving feedback is one way to accomplish this. While you don’t want to nit-pick or be overly critical, you should point out any aspects of the project they did incorrectly and give them any advice you have on ways you would have done things differently or more effectively. Treat this feedback as an opportunity for learning rather than a reprimand. Most employees will appreciate this constructive criticism as an opportunity for growth and improvement—and those are the employees you want to keep your eye on for more responsibility in the future.
