“No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself”
Andrew Carnegie
Managing a team is a full-time job with hundreds of associated tasks and responsibilities. By delegating you’ll:
- Have more time for tasks that have greater added value.
- Multiply your capacity to get results (through people).
- Develop your team members’ self-confidence and skills.
- Demonstrate your confidence in them, motivate them and earn their loyalty.
Quick tips for an effective delegation
- Delegate more. You are most certainly doing things at the moment that someone else could be doing.
- Don’t expect your team members to do things as you would, it’s not going to happen. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. What interests you is the result, not how it is achieved. Does the difference really make up for the time and effort you would have to invest to do it yourself?
- Specify exactly the result you expect: Lack of detail at this point is the main reason for problems, conflicts, delays, and inefficiencies in the delegation process. Explain how you want the report to be, the design you need, the proposal, the presentation… Visualize the final result with the person you’re delegating it to before asking them to start work. Define how success will be evaluated at the end of the process.
