Leaders and managers shifting to a delegative style of leadership have become increasingly popular in recent years. But as more people follow this approach, it becomes apparent that not everyone knows the principles behind effective task delegation in the workplace. In situations like this, delegating tasks turn out to be a counterproductive measure that affects the leaders’ and employees’ efficiency and productivity.
Unlike the common misconception, effective task delegation requires careful consideration and planning. For employees and leaders to both benefit from this approach, it is important to understand the principles of a proper task delegation process. Otherwise, it may lead to a work culture and environment where the employees, team leaders, or the business itself suffers.
Benefits of Delegating Tasks
While a delegative style of leadership is often considered an unorthodox approach, many are looking into adopting this management style in their businesses and companies. If done properly, task delegation can bring positive effects to the company, its leaders, and its employees as well. To give you a better idea, here’s a quick run-through of the benefits of effective task delegation.
Leaders
- Experience less stress because of decreased workload
- Have the ability to focus on high-level tasks
- Develop trust with employees
Employees
- Get the chance to showcase their talents and develop their skills
- Experience increased autonomy and flexibility
- Feel a boost in motivation and determination at work
- Gain confidence and establish trust with leaders
Business
- Notice an increase in overall work performance and productivity
- Benefit from the growth of employees
- Develop teamwork and good working relationships
- Opens opportunities for business development and innovation
Step-by-Step Guide To Effective Task Delegation
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Step #1: Understand the concept of effective delegation
Effective delegation can be a tedious and meticulous process. Unlike what most people may think, delegating tasks effectively is more than just giving instructions and assignments to the employees under you. Taking this into consideration, what are the basic principles of effective delegation exactly?
The first thing that leaders need to know about this approach is that a delegative style of leadership believes in the employees’ ability to perform their assigned duties and responsibilities autonomously. Delegative leadership rids a manager’s tendency to micromanage. Instead, it emphasizes the need to trust the capability of employees to work well and make the right decisions on their own.
In addition to this, another important element of this approach is that employees should be well-equipped to be able to work with minimal supervision. This includes the necessary training, skills, knowledge, and experience. Aside from this, it also includes all necessary resources and tools that allow them to perform their tasks efficiently.
Generally, a delegative style of management first well in teams comprised of skills and experienced employees. Ideally, important tasks should be delegated to people capable and confident enough to work with minimal guidance or input from the team leader.
Step #2: Identify the tasks you want to delegate
Once you have a good grasp of the principles of a delegative leadership approach, the next step would be to determine the specific tasks you want to reassign to an employee. This can be something like social media management, digital marketing, bookkeeping, and the like. After this, create a list of objectives or goals needed to be met by this role. You can also identify the necessary skillset you think is needed to accomplish such tasks. Doing so helps paint the picture of the type of employee that would be able to do this assigned task well.
Step #3: Choose the right person for the job
A crucial part of effective delegation revolves around finding the right person who you deem capable to work well without constant supervision and guidance. Logically, it is not proper to delegate a task to someone who has no knowledge or experience in it. Much like you wouldn’t assign a content writing job to someone who specializes in video content creation or video marketing.
While delegating tasks generally serves the purpose of reducing and spreading the workload, randomly passing tasks and responsibilities to any employee does not ensure that the task would be done properly. In addition to this, assigning an important task to just anyone available can bring significant stress to the employee.
Ideally, tasks are delegated to employees with deep knowledge, well-honed skills, as well as significant exposure and experience in their industries. The same way that it makes sense to give a video marketing project to someone who has worked in the industry for years.
These characteristics can be used as basis and proof of their ability to work autonomously. Aside from that, it also highlights their capability to handle important decision-making responsibilities regarding the task at hand. Otherwise, the next best option would be the employee with the most background as well as the potential to be trained in a short period of time.
Step #4: Provide the necessary training and guidance
In a perfect world, you’d be able to delegate tasks to an employee who is fully capable and confident to do the job on their own. However, that is often not the case. So when you’re delegating tasks, it is important to still be present during their transition and adjustment period.
As a good leader, manager, and mentor, it is best to provide them with the training and guidance that they need in order to grasp the nuances of the tasks effectively. If you’re not available to consult personally, provide detailed instructions as well as a guidebook so they would not be lost and stray from the task at hand.
How To Become a Good Delegative Leader
Source: Pexels
Effective task delegation is more than just properly assigning tasks to the right people in order to achieve good and quality results. More than the outcome, this approach emphasizes the need to encourage and empower employees.
Learning how to delegate tasks effectively is one thing, but becoming a delegative leader is an equally important endeavor. Taking this into consideration, here are some tips that can help you understand how to become a good leader of your team:
Trust your employees
An important part of task delegation is letting your employees take over and take accountability for their work. This means that under this approach, your employees have full control over how they do their jobs and accomplish their goals. A delegative style puts the leader in the backseat, a passenger who acts more like a supervisor than a manager. Taking this into account, it is important for delegative leaders to put their trust in their employees and allow them to conduct themselves as they please as long as it does not affect their work performance.
Be a good communicator
In situations where communication is placed at a minimum, it is essential to know how to communicate effectively and efficiently. Aside from that, it is also important for good leaders to establish a work culture and environment that welcomes and encourages open communication among colleagues regardless of hierarchy or position. Doing this not only empowers employees but also ensures that leaders are able to keep track of each task even with periodical updates only.
Be open to mistakes and failures
Delegating tasks to your employees means that the task would not be done exactly the way you want it to be. And while the hope is to always achieve great and positive outcomes, mistakes and failures will always be a part of any endeavor.
Fear of making mistakes and subsequent punishment are some of the things that make task delegation complicated. A fearful employee would not be able to perform at their best given the consistent stress and worry. With that, a good delegative leader should be open to the possibility of failure, missteps, and mistakes, And instead of punishing employees, encourage them to learn from the experience in order to be better in the future.
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