Your goal is to make it easier to delegate by granting your co-workers authority, making them responsible, autonomous, and effective.
Delegation is a powerful managerial act. It contributes to developing motivation and skills among co-workers.
Identify Your Capacity to Delegate
Assess Your Aptitude for Delegating
Fill in the questionnaire below:
| Not at all! (0 points) | Mostly false (1 point) | Mostly true (2 points) | Totally! (3 points) |
I prefer to do a job myself rather than delegate it. |
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I like ensuring the quality of the work that is done, right down to the details. |
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I spend a lot of time monitoring the progress of a co-worker's task. |
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I find that my co-workers often lack a sense of initiative. |
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I think my co-workers cannot do something as well as me because I have more experience. |
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I am convinced that it is less efficient to explain a task to my co-worker than to do it myself. |
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Overall, my co-workers create more problems than solutions. |
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Calculate your score!
16 points or more - delegating's not for you! You don't trust others or prefer to do everything alone.
Between 10 and 15 points - delegation doesn't come naturally. You must learn to be more trusting.
Between 4 and 9 points - delegating can become one of your strengths.
Between 0 and 4 points, you are either a pro delegator or you have a motivation problem because you delegate whenever possible!
The Six Prerequisites for Effective Delegation
First, answer the following question:
"If I could free up four hours per week, what would I do in terms of management that I'm not already doing?"
Then consider:
What is the person's level of maturity to whom you wish to delegate a task?
Which tasks do they perform extremely well from their current workload?
What additional tasks are they capable of?
What is their interest and willingness to take on the tasks you wish to delegate?
What is their current workload?
Identify the Tasks to Be Delegated
What You Can Delegate
Everything - well, almost!
As a manager, you must go from being someone who does things to making it possible for others to do them.
Managers sometimes tend to take responsibility for some assignments that should ordinarily be the team's work (to the detriment of their other missions or putting them at risk of an excessively heavy workload).
What You Should Keep
Let's highlight some things you should not ask others to do so you understand what you can safely delegate. The things that are part of your role as a manager are:
The vision, budget, goals, and strategy
You set the destination and chart the course for getting there. You are responsible for safeguarding the department's strategy, goals, and budget. However, nothing stops you from involving your co-workers and having them contribute to their development.
Sensitive assignments
Certain topics are sensitive or confidential. Your management has entrusted them to you, and you shouldn’t discuss them with your team.
Team motivation and cohesion
As a manager, it is your responsibility to create an environment that motivates your co-workers. Motivation is a key factor in a company's success. For your co-workers to give their best, they must feel capable, fulfilled, and proud to work with you in your organization.
Performance evaluation
It's your responsibility to recognize the contribution and performance of your co-workers and remind them of your expectations for the months ahead. You also manage the budget for salary increases!
Welcoming a new co-worker
You have a major role to play when a new co-worker arrives and in planning their onboarding and training. Therefore, it is absolutely essential that you make yourself available and devote the time necessary to welcoming them.
Delegate in Three Steps
Delegating consists of three main stages:
1) Identify and prepare the assignment you are going to delegate.
We just talked about that.
2) Hold a delegation meeting with your co-worker.
During this meeting, you will:
Explain the context and importance of the task.
Establish and set SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound), the period covered, the means and the scope for delegation.
Give them all of the information they need to complete the task correctly.
Decide on a framework for follow-up and guidance, including assessment indicators.
At the end of the meeting, ask your co-worker to write a note on the delegation mentioned to ensure you are on the same wavelength and they have properly understood everything. Consider this note as a contract between you.
3) Offer your assistance and support for completion and follow-up.
In addition to this, you can also arrange formal meetings to monitor the assessment indicators. Establish how often they think it would be helpful to meet, and don't hesitate to spread the meetings out over longer periods if you see that the delegation is going very well.
The three conditions for effective delegation:
Skills: delegatees must have the skills necessary to complete the task or assignment.
Authority: give them the necessary authority - and tell the rest of your team about it.
Means: delegatees must have access to all the technical and human resources (the means) required to succeed.
Then get out of their way!
They might not do the work precisely the way you would - and that’s fine. It’s up to them how they do it. You should focus on the outcome of their work and avoid micromanaging!
Your goal is to build your co-worker's confidence.
Finally, don't forget that delegating an assignment is also a test. So when your team member does a good job, make sure you congratulate them!
Delegating is no longer a mystery. You’re on the path to becoming a great manager.
Let's Recap!
Identify members of your team who are both enough and willing to take on additional responsibilities.
Identify what you should keep in your workload and what you can entrust to someone else.
Work with your co-worker to establish the "delegation contract."
Monitor the assignments you have delegated without micromanaging them.
Let's now examine how to prepare and facilitate your team meetings.
