The art of delegating

Being overwhelmed on a day-to-day basis reflects an inability to plan workload and distribution.
In the beginning, a manager should be overwhelmed as they understand the job and the people they have to work with. But overtime, the manager should be able to build an organisation full of employees they can trust.
Let’s look at it this way, not delegating tasks is definitely a problem and improper delegation can be a greater problem.
Many managers think they are delegating but upon inspection it is clear that they are delegating responsibility and fail to delegate the authority to complete the task. Delegating responsibility without also delegating authority is a sure way to fail.
Perfectionists
Effective delegation requires that you empower the person to do the full task and not return to you over and over to get permission to move ahead.
My observation regarding the lack of delegation is that perfectionist managers are the biggest obstacle to delegation. Perfectionism is creating a sort of bias that only perfectionist people can do the job perfectly and correctly.
Since perfectionist people think that others cannot do the job perfectly, they devise new ideas and ways.
As a manager when recruiting I do not look for people who can be delegated to from day one, but people with the capabilities that can assume greater levels of responsibility as time goes on.
Trust others
There are some that believe that their work is better than others, one author called it self-enhancement bias.
Most people have risen to where they are because they are good at what they do and have a fear that others might not match their abilities.
Personally, I have found that in running a successful growing company, the only way to continue growing is to replace that fear with trust. When a leader trusts his or her people to deliver he or she can start delegating.
How do you trust people?
If you recruit the right people from the onset they will be able to do the job. Just give them the leeway to take responsibility and the support they need to complete the task. Trusting people to do a good job is tough. More often than not the lack of trust has less to do with others’ capabilities and more to do with our own fear.
It is critical to address that by taking the leap and experimenting with delegation. Delegation must come at the right moment with the right people. Without these key elements, processes would be in great jeopardy.
If you asked most managers how they spend their day most often that not they will not be able to give you an accurate account of their activities. It is advisable to keep a diary of how you spend your time. After a week, you will start to see patterns on how a lot of time is spent on low-level activities that can be delegated.
OK, how about you delegate and things go wrong? While delegation is indispensable when working to develop the skills of your team, it is also essential to remain “in the trenches” and not holed up in the corner office and simply blame everyone else when things go wrong.
Delegation can lead to the rise of good people managers who may lose touch with the ground-level realities and technicalities. In that sense over-reliance on delegation can have an adverse impact on a manager’s ability to lead a team in the long run.
Specify the task
Often people lack a fundamental intuitive sense of the components of the delegation needed to give the subordinates enough specificity to do the delegated task.
Crucially, it is often left unclear as to whether subordinates are allowed to ask questions when they have been delegated a duty.
The problem comes when the subordinate cannot do the delegated task because they have not been provided with the information needed to perform the task, the delegating person becomes angry and takes back the work and does it himself.
Some managers fear delegation because they have been “burnt” in the past. It is important that you pass on work to people who have the necessary skills and are motivated to get the job done. Ideally, you should be able to delegate some form of work to everyone on your team. If you push work as far down the hierarchy as possible, you will free up time and help all your staff members to grow and acquire experience.
Till next week, may God richly bless you!