After some years of staying at the middle level of management, I realize that being a manager is a highly demanding position that needs continuous training and reflection. Being an outstanding staff doesn’t ensure that you will become a great manager or director. Management skill is a skill set that requires self-learned and accumulation day by day. Among them, delegation works as the first essential lesson for any effective manager. It helps to sort out below embarrassing questions:
How to become an effective manager?
How to hand over a task to another and receive exactly what you expect? Or
How to make everyone happy with the assignment?
How to conduct a change in a business unit that makes everyone consent and willing to support you?
To me, an individual can somehow learn their first management lessons to boost their teamwork effectively, from a team lead to director and business owner/ investor. Of course, a manager probably needs more skills than delegation merely to bring about changes, but delegation is the first lesson to learn. Even staff level can attain more autonomy once they understand delegation and how to exert their line manager.
What is delegation?
Delegation is the transfer of responsibility and accountability from one person to another. From a management perspective, it is the transfer from the higher management level to the lower one or subordinates.
It is strongly believed that no one can accomplish everything themselves. Managers acknowledge that fact as well. However, this acknowledgment is just a part of the mission.
Successful delegation begins with matching people and tasks. Thus, an effective manager needs to define what your team’s role and goals are. Then team charter – a document agreement of the team’s purpose and how it will work – is a good start. This works well for an old/new team, or a new manager as the workloads change periodically. It serves as navigation to bring a team back on track.
How to delegate effectively?
There are 06 basic rules about delegation, to me, that every influential manager must master and practice as their own bible management practice daily:
Firstly, managers must categorize, prioritize their worklist and realize which one can yield the highest returns for the company.
Peers and bosses may even admire your willingness to keep “rolling up your sleeves” to execute tactical assignments. Nevertheless, your responsibilities become more complex. The difference between an effective leader and a super-sized individual contributor with a leader title is painfully evident. Instead, managers should spend more time grasping an overview of business and focus on actions vital to their company’s growth.
Secondly, they develop team capacity using a strength-based approach.
Through team charter, and regular meetings, they can understand what their people naturally do best and then assigns the relevant tasks accordingly. This motivates and engages employees, increases productivity, and benefits the entire business. Weak managers often cannot understand their staff’s strengths, capabilities, and preferences, which confuses their assignments and leads to staff dissatisfaction.
Thirdly, great managers focus on outcomes, not processes.
They set clear expectations about everything from timing to budget, and deliverables. They monitor progress, enhancing employee commitment, and performance, boosting morale, and work ethic. A person with poor management tends to micromanage and deliver unclear expectations, leaving their team confused, and frustrated in their work. Also, they miss critical moments where a supportive comment and vital piece of feedback would matter.
Next, managers ensure that their employees have everything they need to complete the jobs.
They provide tools, resources, training, and learning opportunities. They genuinely care about each staff’s growth. Inefficient managers fail to give support or neglect to care for teammates’ issues.
At fifth, they communicate well and frequently with employees.
They provide feedback about what works, and what doesn’t, also fostering an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect. Bad managers don’t provide constructive feedback but claim their performance. This, therefore, can demoralize employees and create a dysfunctional environment that hampers productivity and growth.
Lastly, good managers encourage new ideas and approaches to accomplish goals.
They foster psychological ownership and engagement among teams by giving them more autonomy to achieve their goals. Non-delegators do not trust others to do things right; they centralize and control the decision-making process at every turn.
Other reference sources that I find it compelling as well, here.
To summarize, I would like to quote from Hbr.org a compelling sentence that might valuate your delegation: If you had to take an unexpected week off work, would your initiatives and priorities advance in your absence? If you answer: No or Unsure, then you may be more involved than essential and you has tasks to do right now!
Norwich, Feb 2022
Kate.