Top 5 tips for leaders on how to delegate
One of the most important skills for a leader to master is effective delegation. In addition to training the team and developing confidence in her teammates, she can exercise a greater span of influence (lead larger areas) and better focus on more critical parts of her role like people development and business strategy. It’s not easy to do, and many leaders don’t do it well.
Leaders may hesitate to delegate a task because they think:
I can do it better.
It’ll take longer to explain to someone else.
I don’t want to add to the never-ending to-do-list of my busy team.
If I delegate everything, then what am I supposed to do?
The last one is a real killer because leaders, especially new ones forget or even don’t realize their job is no longer being an individual contributor. While they are still responsible for the projects’ completion, they need to mentor, coach and train their teammates to make things happen. This critical shift in focus will result in their people’s success, and the team’s success. That is how a leader and a team wins!
So let’s dig into what steps to take:
1. Know you teammates strengths and interests
Knowing each person’s strengths will help you transfer responsibility to the appropriate teammate who can do a good job with no or little oversight from you. That means you need to get to know your people and their strengths and interests very well. One of the ways to know that is by having monthly 1:1 meetings that is focused on the person. During these meetings every person should have goals that they're working towards based on their strengths and interests. And within those goals are opportunities to delegate.
For example, maybe you have a direct report who wants to gain project management experience. Is there a project they can own from the start to completion? The type of project you assign should factor into their professional development plan.
2. Outline the desired outcome
Simply assigning tasks and projects to your teammates is not effective delegating. The tasks and projects you hand off should come with proper scope, context and a clear tie-in to the organization’s goals as well as the individual’s goals.
Before any project starts, the person who has been assigned should know what they need to complete, by when, the budget including the metrics you’ll use to measure the success of their work.
3. Give authority and provide coaching
Make sure the person you’re delegating a project has the authority and resources to complete it. This is where you need to fight the urge to micromanage. Be a coach instead. If you’re delegating a project to a team member then start by showing you trust them. Obviously you should be there for them to give advice or help remove roadblocks. But don’t try and control things or get them to do things your way. Everyone works differently and what really matters is that the project is completed successfully and not necessarily how.
4. Don’t be afraid of mistakes
A key to demonstrating trust is to allow for mistakes along the way. Remember you are making a long-term investment in the person, beyond this project. They will get better in the future. As they develop you will need to do less handholding. Of course you need to stay close to make sure the entire project does not fail, but you can still give plenty of room to the person. This is how you help your teammate to experiment, feel empowered and be successful. The more afraid of failing you are, and the more you micro-manage, the more your project lead feels demoralized and unmotivated. This increases the odds of the project failing. So be open and supportive and get the best results!
5. Give credit and be thankful
Maybe this is the most important point in delegating. When you see a project completed successfully make sure you give credit and thank people who have worked on it. Recognizing your team's success leads to more success in the future. Being empowered, coached and then recognized means you will have more engaged teammates. This will lead to more successful projects in the future.
We all know that delegating isn’t an easy task; it’s truly an art and must be practiced like any other skill to get results. You become an invaluable leader when you master aligning the right people with the right projects and are supportive the whole way.