The Secrets of Effective Delegating

Unless you’re very new to leadership, you already know you should be delegating – entrusting tasks and responsibilities to those you lead.

But even veteran leaders can struggle to delegate effectively. Ever met a leader who lived by the “if you want it done right, do it yourself” mantra?

Those leaders didn’t know the secrets of effective delegating.

Remember Why

Let’s quickly review a few reasons why you would want to delegate:

* You maximize your own effectiveness and spend time doing what you do best.

* You can’t do everything. (Sorry…you can’t.)

* You help your team members grow in skill, confidence, and capacity.

* Your team members will be better at some things than you are. (Again, sorry…it’s true!)

* Your team will produce more and at better quality.

With all these reasons in favor of delegating, why wouldn’t every leader do it?

Problems

Whenever I’ve worked with leaders who disliked delegating, it resulted from one of two problems:

Either they a) had never tried or b) they had tried and failed. Having tried once or twice and failed, these struggling leaders never again trust others with responsibility. Consequently, their effectiveness suffers and they lose good people.

Fortunately, you can avoid this by practicing a few basic secrets of effective delegating.

Secrets

There are really three things to do when you delegate. The first two are rare enough:

1) Set clear expectations – What is the responsibility? What outcomes are required for successful completion? When is the task due? How should it be delivered?

2) Ensure skills match – If you give someone a responsibility they can’t perform or quickly learn, you set them up for failure and yourself for disappointment.

You don’t need them to be able to do it perfectly (or as good as you). 70% as good as you is usually good enough for them to dive in and start improving the way you did – by doing!

Now for the big one – the one simple task that is vital to effective delegating:

3) Follow up. Examine the results, read the report, get feedback from the event…and go over the results with your team member.

“But wait a second,” I hear you saying, “if I’m delegating, what’s the point in following up – aren’t I wasting time?”

Not at all. In fact, I contend that if you follow the first two secrets of effective delegating, but fail to do number three – then you really have wasted your time!

Your timely follow up is essential:

* You guarantee the responsibility is completed.

* You communicate respect for your team member’s time and effort. How many times have you had a leader delegate to you and you work hard, but the leader never acknowledges or even asks for the product? That feels horrible and eventually you’re less likely to perform well on the next task.

* You have your best training opportunity. Discuss what went well. Discuss where things did not go as anticipated. What can your team member learn for next time? These are the very best learning opportunities you’ll ever have. Don’t waste them.

* You build credibility. After a few repetitions, your team knows you will follow up. They know you value their effort, they know the task is valuable enough to warrant your attention, and they know you will help them learn.

Taking Action

The next time you delegate, assuming you’ve set clear expectations and they have the skills needed, do just one thing:

At the moment you are delegating, make an appointment with yourself for the day and time the responsibility is due. Use this appointment to review the outcome and set another to discuss results with your team member.

You will have mastered the secrets to effective delegating.

Take care,

David M. Dye

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David shares twenty years experience teaching, coaching, leading, and managing in youth service, education advocacy, city governance, and faith-based nonprofits. He currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for Colorado UpLift and enjoys helping others discover and realize their own potential.