The Art of Delegation
What is Delegation?
Delegation is something that is more commonly used by managers. Depending on the size of your business, you may have managers at different levels. Many of us may see delegation as the free will of handing out work for others to complete.
This isn’t completely accurate: for example, you may feel the need to delegate a task that you are responsible for so that you can concentrate on something that you consider more important.
You may believe that delegation sounds easy and is something that you could do all day long. To those people who are experienced, this may be true, otherwise its complete nonsense. Delegation requires skill, patience, confidence and courage.
Benefits of Delegation
Successful delegation occurs when you purposely choose an employee to do a specific task. This employee has been specifically chosen because you believe that they have the ability to complete the task in question.
You have therefore given the responsibility to complete the task to that person: you have not shaken off the responsibility of how well the task is completed.
This is still down to you because you have put faith in this person to not only complete the task, but to do it right.
As stated in the above section, delegating work can allow you to concentrate on things that you believe require your personal knowledge/skill. Other tasks that you may have can be delegated if you believe that you have staff with the necessary knowledge/skill to complete them.
Delegating tasks can be seen as a form of appraisal by the employee(s) that you have chosen. By delegating tasks, you have given them an increase in responsibility (a prime motivator) and consequently they may feel more inspired to complete the task.
If the rate at which employees proceed (promotion, etc) through your business is important, then you will feel that delegated tasks are extremely worthwhile. By delegating, you will have increased their responsibility and capabilities which will further add to their knowledge/skill. This will then put them in a position to meet the requirements of moving up to the next level.
Adding further to that above, if you delegate a task which has given the employee a new level of knowledge/skill, you will have expanded your resources. Should a similar task come up in the future, it is more than likely that you have the right staff available to delegate the task.
There may come a time when you feel that you need to prepare for the future (by delegating) rather than personally deal ing with tasks in the present. Delegating tasks will then mean you have more time to plan the future and to remain competitive. This is an important part of a managerial role (you MANAGE, while others WORK).
Article Index
- What is Delegation ?
- The Art of Delegation-Is there a Down Side to Delegation?
