Success in leadership roles doesn’t mean being the best employee on the team. It’s determined by your ability to help your team grow, achieve their goals, and contribute to the broader vision of the company.
This involves helping them learn the tasks they’re working on and, when appropriate, creating opportunities for them to take on more visible or challenging work.
That’s why learning how to delegate is so important. It can help you reclaim valuable time and provide the rest of your team with more opportunities to develop their skills. Delegation is about loosening control and increasing responsibility.
Determine What to Delegate and to Whom
Once you realize that delegation is part of your job, you’ll be able to determine which projects you can take on, which work to delegate, and to whom.
Many projects will require your expertise, your contribution to the company, and your knowledge as a leader, and are generally not suitable for delegating to a less experienced employee. Some examples include setting development goals for your team members, establishing quarterly benchmarks, or contributing to a company-wide initiative as the department representative.
Leverage Your Team’s Strengths
Each delegated project should serve a purpose, whether it’s to reduce the workload from a more complex project or to help the team gain visibility, both internally and externally.
You don’t always have to delegate an entire project to someone else, so consider which tasks may require skills in which your team members have expertise.
You can identify these skills by observing people in action or asking questions during one-on-one conversations like: “What type of work energizes you?” “What do you consider your greatest strengths?” “What makes you feel most fulfilled?”
The Importance of Communication
When you delegate a project to an employee, remember that they need to know what you are delegating, why they are being asked to do it, and what you expect from them. This conversation can be an opportunity to recognize each team member’s strengths and potential.
It’s important to set clear boundaries on decision-making: what will require your input and what they can decide on their own. Your job is to set the goals and expectations, and theirs is to determine the process for achieving them.
Reflection
Once the project is completed, you can look back and assess the process from their perspective. Through these conversations, you can identify what you can do to help your team member move forward and discover new insights into how to improve your delegation skills.
