The Power of Delegation

Power 12.

What is Delegation?

It means assigning responsibility for work you want done to a competent person; it is not just giving a person a task to complete to relieve your workload. It is meaningfully involving other people in your project so those people can develop their skills and abilities and not only grow their potential but grow professionally. When you delegate you give someone else one of your job tasks; but you maintain control and responsibility.

How Do I Delegate?

The main requirement for properly delegating is to trust yourself to delegate effectively and by building up your people skills. Find the people whose strengths match the skills and capabilities you require for the task. Plan ahead and be clear about what you want done. Explain what you want in detail and put it in writing. Don?t be the one to make the decisions and come up with all the ideas, instead, allow the person or team to take the initiative and be responsible for seeing tasks through to a successful completion. Be supportive, encouraging and always positive.

What are the Benefits of Delegation?

Effective delegation benefits both the person delegating and the person who has been delegated the task. It lessens the workload and pressure on one person and creates an environment where productivity increases and projects are completed on time. When the leader can arrange the workload so that you are working on the tasks that have the highest priority for you and other people are working on meaningful and challenging assignments, you have a recipe for success. Delegation develops people for future growth and prepares them to handle authority and responsibility.

SUMMARY

Delegation is a skill and it must be practiced. If you can grasp the opportunity to delegate you can be genuinely successful, for as each person?s capabilities grow, so will the business. Plan ahead, set out your requirements clearly and in writing, agree on the standards to be used to measure success and obtain a commitment to complete the task. Effective delegation is a win-win situation because it builds trust and confidence and leads to a happy and cohesive environment.

When you are working your plan toward your goal, there comes a time when you sense the pressure of work overload. When you work on your own you cannot personally execute all the tasks necessary for you to fulfil your goal, nor is it practical or desirable. At this point, if you can grasp the opportunity to delegate, you can be genuinely successful.

One of the most valuable skills you can learn is how to effectively delegate responsibility to those around you. If you do it well you can quickly build a strong and successful team of people, well able to meet the demands required of them. Delegation frees up your resources and enables you to expand the time you can spend carrying out your core functions and responsibilities. It is important to remember that you can delegate authority but the responsibility and accountability always stay with you.

Delegation is not just telling someone what to do; it is a skill and it must be practised. It is more complex than just handing over tasks; it means enabling and authorising an individual or group to think, take action and control work and decision-making in an autonomous way. It allows the delegate to initiate improvements in their work, make appropriate decisions and exercise their choice in how to go about the job to achieve best results, knowing they are backed by management. It launches them into effective, independent action and, in the long run, saves time and resources. It also allows the delegate to realise their full potential and grow professionally.

As the person delegating you are required to develop skills in many different areas. Not only do you need good analytical and organisational skills, but you must also have good people skills and you must trust yourself to be able to designate the right person to carry out the assignment. Handing over authority can be difficult because you are conferring a wide range of freedoms on the other person. Clearly set out your requirements for the task and the steps needed to accomplish the end result, in writing. Specify parameters, resource availability, timeline, expected quality of work and the amount of authority they will have. Most importantly, be supportive, encouraging and always positive. By meaningfully involving other people in your project you develop those people?s skills and abilities.

Teamwork pulls many years of experience and effort together, yet it is one of the least used tools in business. It is wise to utilise your personnel?s experience and brainpower and show people you value them as people as well as for their knowledge. Team members also feel more appreciated and valued when they are allowed to participate in a hands-on manner by using the skills they have learned. There is no better or faster way of improving a business?s worth than by delegating to willing and able people as much as they can handle for as each person?s capabilities grow so will the business. Empower those around you to have confidence in their own abilities and move them closer to their full potential. This way you will have earned their trust and confidence and that can only lead to a very happy and cohesive, win-win, environment.

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