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Genevieve Conti


HOW TO DELEGATE TASKS EFFECTIVELY (AND WHY IT’S IMPORTANT)

 * Business

2051748

One of my favorite Olympic sports to watch is track relay. The runners make
blindly reaching for a baton at 20 mph while staying in their lanes look
incredibly easy. But in truth, what they’re doing is extremely difficult. And
it’s a lot like delegating effectively.



Delegating sounds easy—and others who can do it well make it look easy—but
passing the baton effectively requires a lot of trust, communication, and
coordination. Still, if you learn how to delegate—and you do it well—everyone on
your team wins.

Table of Contents:

 * Why Is It Important to Delegate?
 * Why Managers Fail to Delegate
 * How to Determine When Delegating is Appropriate
 * How to Delegate Tasks Effectively


WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO DELEGATE?

As a leader, delegating is important because you can’t—and shouldn’t—do
everything yourself. Delegating empowers your team, builds trust, and assists
with professional development. And for leaders, it helps you learn how to
identify who is best suited to tackle tasks or projects.

Of course, delegating tasks can lighten your workload, but according to Dr.
Scott Williams, professor of management at Wright State University, delegating
does much more than just get stuff off your plate.

For one, the people who work for you will be able to develop new skills and gain
knowledge, which prepares them for more responsibility in the future.

“Delegation can also be a clear sign that you respect your subordinates’
abilities and that you trust their discretion,” Williams writes. “Employees who
feel that they are trusted and respected tend to have a higher level of
commitment to their work, their organization, and, especially, their managers.”


WHY MANAGERS FAIL TO DELEGATE



While the benefits of delegating are obvious and plentiful, many managers still
fail to delegate effectively. The reality is that there are several myths and
misconceptions about delegating that can make some leaders wary of handing off
work to others.


THEY THINK DELEGATING IS JUST PASSING OFF WORK TO SOMEONE ELSE

“Managers often mistake delegation for passing off work,” writes Harvey Mackay,
founder of MackayMitchell Envelope Co. “So they don’t do it, and they wind up
wasting their time as well as the company’s time and resources.”

Delegation can be a chance to make workloads more manageable, but more than
that, it can provide really valuable teaching opportunities for your employees,
Mackay notes.

Delegation is not a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of a strong leader.


THEY THINK THEY CAN DO IT BETTER

One study found that two psychological processes make people more reluctant to
delegate work:

 * the self-enhancement effect, which is a manager’s tendency to evaluate a work
   product more highly the more involved he/she is in its production
 * the faith in supervision effect, which is when people have a tendency to
   think work performed under the control of a supervisor is better than work
   performed without as much supervision

Watch for those biases in your work. They could be a sign that you need to focus
on building more trust within your team.

Related: 6 Simple Tips for Effective Team Management


THEY’RE NERVOUS ABOUT LETTING GO

Letting go can be challenging, but accepting that you can’t do everything
yourself is important.

“Giving up being ‘the go-to expert’ takes tremendous confidence and perspective
even in the healthiest environments,” says Carol Walker, president of Prepared
to Lead—a consulting firm that focuses on developing young leaders.

Remind yourself that your team wants to do good work and be successful just like
you do. If your employees succeed, you succeed.

“I’ve learned that people will seldom let you down if they understand that your
destiny is in their hands—and vice versa,” says Mackay.


THEY’RE WORRIED DELEGATING WILL TAKE LONGER THAN JUST DOING THE WORK

Another common barrier to delegation is that it can take longer to teach someone
else how to do a task than to just do it yourself.

And while that might be true the first time you delegate the task, over time,
the amount of time you have to dedicate to that task decreases because you won’t
have to be involved with it at all.

Imagine that it will take you eight hours to walk someone through a task you
have to complete every week. Typically, it takes you an hour to complete the
task.

Once eight weeks have passed after you’ve trained someone else to do the task
for you, you’ll have recouped the time you spent on training and now have an
extra hour each week.

With that extra hour, you can focus on more important work, such as strategy,
coaching, or development—the things leaders are supposed to do.


HOW TO DETERMINE WHEN DELEGATING IS APPROPRIATE



Another common barrier to delegation is that leaders aren’t sure which tasks
they should and shouldn’t be delegating. In every manager’s
workload—particularly new managers—there are likely tasks that you should do and
tasks that you should delegate.

Career and business strategist Jenny Blake recommends conducting an audit of
your tasks using the rules below to find out which of your tasks should be
delegated:

 * Tiny: Tiny tasks are little things that only take a small amount of time to
   complete but add up over time. These might be things an assistant could do:
   scheduling meetings, booking flights for business trips, or deleting
   spam/marketing emails from your inbox.
 * Tedious: Tedious tasks are mindless tasks, such as copying and pasting lead
   information from your marketing automation tool to your CRM. Tedious tasks
   require little skill and can be easily delegated.
 * Time-consuming: Time-consuming tasks are opportunities to break work into
   smaller chunks and delegate portions of the work to others. If you perform a
   task regularly that takes a lot of time, look for opportunities to hand off
   segments of that task to others.
 * Teachable: Do you have tasks on your plate that you could easily teach
   someone else to complete? If a task is entirely teachable—if it does not
   require expertise that only you can provide—it’s a worthwhile candidate for
   delegation.
 * Terrible at: Maybe you have no design skills, so it takes you six times as
   long to create graphics for your blog posts as it would a professional
   designer. It’s better to delegate that task to someone who’s more equipped to
   do the work quickly and well.
 * Time-sensitive: Maybe it would be better if you handled all of the tasks
   belonging to a time-sensitive project, but if you won’t have time to complete
   it doing it all on your own, it’s time to find ways to delegate parts of that
   task to other members of your team.

Additionally, you may need to consider delegating tasks you love doing but are
no longer part of your job.

If you recently moved into a leadership role, you may have pet projects from
your days as an individual contributor, but if it’s now someone else’s job to
complete those tasks, it’s time to delegate and teach that person how to do it
for you.

Want to delegate tasks effectively?

Try MeisterTask

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HOW TO DELEGATE TASKS EFFECTIVELY

Here are a few tips to help you delegate effectively so that your team shares
the workload and makes progress that benefits everyone.


1. CHOOSE THE RIGHT PERSON FOR THE JOB

Part of being a good leader is understanding your employees’ strengths,
weaknesses, and preferences. If you need to delegate a task that is going to
require a lot of collaboration to complete, don’t delegate it to someone who
very strongly prefers working alone. Delegate it to someone who prefers
collaborating.

If you conducted the audit recommended in the section above, you may have a list
of tasks you’re looking to delegate. You may want to consider sitting down with
your team, going through the list, and letting people self-select the tasks
they’re most interested in taking over.

Letting people choose the tasks they’re delegated is another way to build trust
with and inspire engagement among your team.




2. EXPLAIN WHY YOU’RE DELEGATING

If you’re delegating a task to someone out of the blue, it really helps when you
provide context for why you’re giving them that responsibility.

“When you select people to delegate to, tell them why you chose them
specifically and how you hope to see this help them grow,” says Alex Cavoulacos,
founder of The Muse. “Help them see each delegated task as an opportunity to
take on more responsibilities or grow new skills.”


3. PROVIDE THE RIGHT INSTRUCTIONS

Every good delegator provides basic and important information without
micromanaging. Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,
suggests that you delegate results rather than methods:

“For example, say, ‘Here’s what we are doing. Here’s what we’re after. I want
you to get the sale,’ instead of ‘Follow up on those leads,” Covey says.

Tell employees your goals or the milestones you hope to hit and let them tackle
the problem in their own way. Don’t look for perfection or micromanage; someone
else might complete a task differently than you would. As long as you get the
result you’re looking for, that’s okay.


4. PROVIDE RESOURCES AND TRAINING

You have to make sure the person tasked with a job or project has the tools and
resources they need to be successful.

“A good training rule of thumb is ‘I do, we do, you do’ (i.e. watch me do this,
then let’s do it together, now you try),” says Cavoulacos.

Make sure that when you delegate a task, the person has the tools and skills
they need to complete the task—or provide a way for them to work on those
skills.

For example, if you ask someone to use a specific tool they’ve never used before
to complete a task, make sure there’s a plan for them to become familiar with
the tool first.




5. DELEGATE RESPONSIBILITY *AND* AUTHORITY

You’ve probably been in a situation where you were tasked with something but
didn’t feel fully empowered to make decisions. As a result, the work stalls, you
end up having to ask for help, and the task takes more time from both the
employee and the manager.

“Managers who fail to delegate responsibility in addition to specific tasks
eventually find themselves reporting to their subordinates and doing some of the
work, rather than vice versa,” writes Martin Zwilling, founder and CEO of
Startup Professionals.

Foster an environment and culture where people feel they’re able to make
decisions, ask questions, and take the necessary steps to complete the work.


6. CHECK THE WORK AND PROVIDE FEEDBACK

There’s nothing worse than a manager who delegates something to an employee and
then blames the employee when something goes wrong. Don’t be that manager.

Check the work you delegated to your employees when it’s complete, make sure
they did it correctly, and give them any feedback needed to improve when
handling the task going forward.


7. SAY THANK YOU

When someone completes a task or project you delegated, show genuine
appreciation and point out specific things they did right or well.

When you make a note of those specifics, you’re giving people a roadmap for what
they should continue to do to be successful.

“This is the simplest step but one of the hardest for many people to learn,”
Zwilling says. “It will inspire loyalty, provide real satisfaction for work
done, and become the basis for mentoring and performance reviews.”


THE BENEFITS OF LEARNING TO DELEGATE

If you delegate well, you can increase trust and commitment with your employees,
improve productivity, and make sure the right people are performing the tasks
that best suit them.

So don’t be afraid to pass the baton. It might take some practice to become a
great delegator, but if you work at it, you’ll all go further.

Originally published in March 2017, this post has been updated to provide more
information about how to determine which tasks should be delegated and to add a
few more delegating tips.

You might also like:

 * 3 Creative Leadership Methods to Spark the Next Big Idea
 * 3 Proven Strategies to Motivate Your Team
 * 4 Strategies to Make Creativity a Key Part of Company Culture
 * 4 Steps for Successful Employee Development

Want to delegate tasks effectively?

Try MeisterTask

Contact Sales
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ABOUT GENEVIEVE CONTI

Genevieve is a UX researcher who loves to write. She enjoys uncomplicating
complex language and finding the perfect GIF for every situation. You can find
her on Twitter @jennygenevieve




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