Do you want to delegate the art or do you want to do everything yourself?
Delegating means delegating tasks, competencies and responsibilities to others – usually employees. And this is exactly what many people find difficult for a variety of reasons. Do you tend to do everything yourself?
We have put together a number of helpful tips for effective delegation for you:
Reasons why you should delegate consistently
Many managers find it difficult to hand over tasks or responsibilities.
Maybe they have had bad experiences and think they would be able to do it better anyway. Perhaps they also shy away from the risk of their employees making mistakes. The desire for recognition can also lead to a situation where they prefer not to delegate any tasks, because those who have a lot to do often feel that they themselves are important and significant. Other reservations about delegating are ambition, fear of competition, an addiction to control and much more.
But correct delegation has far more advantages than disadvantages.
Good reasons for giving up
Here you will find five good reasons to give more work to your employees in the future:
- You achieve better work results
- You gain more time for the essentials
- You promote your employees
- You gain recognition as a leader
- You have less stress
- Better work results through delegation
They cannot be equally good in all areas. However good you are, there are activities that others can do better than you. And that’s not bad, it’s your chance! It simply makes sense to put together a team of capable people, because through delegation much better results can be achieved. By combining different competencies, larger projects become possible in the first place that you would not be able to manage on your own.
Delegating makes you better
By delegating tasks and responsibilities, you can concentrate on your core competencies and thus constantly improve your skills. You can use your free time to concentrate on building on your strengths and tackling weaknesses.
Through delegation you support your employees in
By entrusting tasks to your employees, you increase their self-confidence. They encourage initiative and enable them to constantly expand their skills and competencies.
Whoever delegates effectively reaps recognition as a leader
If you can delegate effectively, you can be assured of recognition from others. Being able to delegate is a true success trait of leaders and is admired by others.
Less stress through effective delegation
Last but not least, the ability to delegate also helps you avoid stress and burnout. If you consistently delegate tasks to your employees, you reduce your workload and prevent them from overworking themselves. You simplify your life and learn to let go. All this is good for you in the short and long term.
The basis for successful delegation is:
- Confidence
- transparency
- communication
- feedback
- Trust is the foundation
Without trust on both sides, effective delegation is simply not possible.
Your trust in your employees – First, you need to trust your employees and trust them to do the job. If you don’t have that trust, you’ll find it hard to hand over tasks. Maybe you think “trust is good – control is better”? And that’s what it’s all about: control is important, especially when you’re in charge. But delegating also means giving up a piece of responsibility.
If you don’t trust anyone to do the job, your delegating project is doomed to failure from the outset. You simply cannot control everything. That is not the point. Find capable people and learn to trust them.
The trust of your employees in you – It is also indispensable that your employees trust you. They must have the courage to tell you when they are overwhelmed by a task, when they need support or when they can admit to mistakes. Much depends on your reaction. If you then quickly become angry or impatient, no conducive atmosphere can develop. Create a constructive atmosphere of openness and support and a healthy culture of mistakes and criticism.
No personal responsibility without transparency
Those who are to complete their tasks need to know less what they are supposed to do and more importantly what the respective task is aimed at. It is crucial that the objective is clear for all parties involved. This is the only way to ensure that your employees think for themselves and have the chance to act independently and make decisions.
So what we need is:
- sufficient information about the task and everything that is important for its completion,
- clear instructions about what to expect, but enough room for manoeuvre to perform the task as you see fit,
- Information on the meaning and goal of the task, because only those who know what the goal is can achieve it.
- and the importance of the task in the context of the project, because only then will it be possible for your employees to look beyond the famous horizon.
Unfortunately, many managers believe that their subordinates don’t need to know much – they just need to do what they’re told. This attitude has less to do with effective delegation than with simple commands. Ideally, the people to whom you delegate the task do it better than you do.
And you can only achieve this if you also face your employees accordingly. When you give orders, you get subordinates who at best do exactly what they are told. But if you have the courage to delegate, you will get employees who think for themselves and develop solutions independently. In order to achieve this, you must be prepared to provide all important information and also immediately pass on new developments in the project.
Communication is the lubricant of successful delegation
Effective communication is essential. Effective communication means making sure that all important information arrives exactly where it is needed, and that all information is actually understood as it was meant.
To achieve this, you have to develop a functioning communication system. Whether you use your intranet, black pages, newsletters or the personal word for it is up to you and the respective situation in your company. It is crucial that the system works.
Control and feedback: praise and new approaches
If you delegate tasks, this does not mean that you should no longer care about the results at all. For example, you have to find out for yourself whether your delegation strategy is useful and sensible and whether your staff are up to the task.
This is about constructive control with regard to the goals you want to achieve as a company or department. It is therefore very helpful to work out concrete goals so that it quickly becomes clear whether the goals have been achieved or not.
This enables relatively emotionless control and constructive feedback. Remember that your employees first have to learn how to deal with the new responsibility they are now given. This can always lead to mistakes. But where control and criticism with regard to common objectives are carried out, everyone can learn from it.