To use their time wisely and to be the most effective, leaders must learn to delegate.
The first step in delegation is deciding what exactly to let others do, control, and own.
When making this decision, good leaders remember that delegation is about more than just offloading tasks. It’s primarily about developing team members and focusing a leader’s efforts on what matters most.
Toward that end, the best place to start is to list the many tasks and projects currently on your plate and those that will be under your control in the near future.
This can be a big list. So be sure not to skip over mundane and high-value tasks. You might be surprised at exactly how many tasks and projects you own and control.
That’s why delegation is so important. You can’t spend time on what really matters if you try to do everything yourself.
Once you have a complete task set, the next step is to identify which tasks are repetitive or do not rely on your unique strengths and expertise. This will narrow the list considerably.
Be honest about those tasks that truly require your expertise and skill to achieve the desired quality level. Perfectionists and control freaks often think that quality in everything depends on their singular experience and skill, which is simply not the case.
Any task or project on your list that is highly repetitive is ripe for delegation. Repetitive tasks can be executed from a checklist or process that ensures quality, so creating a guide for execution allows them to be easily delegated to others.
Let go of these tasks first.
Instead of composing the process yourself, consider asking the team member to shadow you and then to construct the checklist they will use when they own the task.
Now, consider which of the tasks and projects on this list would develop a particular team member’s skill and fast-track their growth. The right tasks will enhance skill development, build confidence, and allow a team member to navigate a new challenge.
Think about who on your team has the base skill or experience and the interest in one of these tasks. Visualize what they will learn and how they will grow as they take charge of this task. Don’t let discomfort stand in your way of giving team members the chance they have been waiting for.
It’s too easy to imagine that team members aren’t ready to take on one of your tasks or projects, as they lack the experience to do things as well as you would.
That’s a cop-out.
Doubts about team members’ skills or reliability are natural. But good leaders don’t allow this hesitancy to stand in the way of delegating those projects that will turbo-charge a team member’s growth.
Your job as a leader is to make team members more skillful. You can’t achieve this without trusting those who aren’t perfectly ready for the challenge.
Deciding what to delegate isn’t about dumping tasks you don’t want to do. It’s about developing your team and finding the time to focus on the issues with the biggest impact.
When you do things that others could, everyone loses. Good leaders love to delegate. They are not lazy, too busy, or overly trusting, but because they want to develop people. The team gets better when the leader learns what to delegate.
