Eight Step Process to Maximize Delegation Effectiveness
One of the great things about being a manager is that you can delegate various types of tasks to other people, instead of having to do them yourself. This may sound like a rather cavalier statement, but it’s true. As a manager, to do your job efficiently and effectively, you must delegate various types of tasks to your staff. If you don’t delegate, you will be overworked and your staff will be underutilized. In fact, you do a disservice to your staff if you don’t delegate because to inhibits your staff’s ability to learn new things and grow as professionals. Like all management activities, delegation must be done in a thoughtful, ethical, and forward thinking manner. To that end, consider the following tips when delegating tasks to your staff, contractors, vendors and others. 1. Clearly define what can and cannot be delegated: As a manager, be mindful of what should and should not be delegated. For example, specific tasks may contain proprietary information that should not be shared at your staff’s organizational level. As a second example, there are tasks that your team members may not be qualified to perform, thus setting them up for failure. Lastly, don’t just dump unwanted activities onto your staff to get them off your plate. Your team will eventually figure this out and it will hurt your credibility as their manager. On the positive side, delegation can be a powerful tool to maximize your team’s productivity, enhance their skill set, help them grow professionally, and free [...]