The Power of Delegation

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by too much work? Do you struggle to find enough time to complete it all? In Heather’s communication coaching, clients often come to her completely buried in more work than they can handle. When they spend time working to uncover what’s happening in the workplace, the cause of this overwhelm is usually because they need to work on delegating.

Delegating is the reassigning of a task or responsibility to someone else. This requires you to know the strength of your team and the strategies they use to complete their work. It’s also crucial that you have a big-picture understanding of how different delegated tasks come together to accomplish the finished goal.

However, delegating may be difficult. Some leaders often have a sense of control that they want to maintain over the project, which makes sense as they were hired to do just that. Understandably, sometimes it’s hard to let go of some of the pieces of an important project, but without delegation, the project won’t get done.

There are many benefits to delegating in the workplace:

Protecting your own time.

Regardless of your position at your company, your time is valuable. By delegating you’re protecting your core strengths.

Improving production quality.

When you delegate to people who can best complete the task, you improve the overall quality of the product.

Growing team skills.

Delegating encourages your team to take on more responsibility. As you delegate core tasks to your team, their skills will grow, allowing you to take on more of a coaching position. Try to be patient and coach them through their tasks. Delegating ultimately creates a strong team relationship where everyone works toward their strengths.

Showing leadership.

As a leader, you must accept that you cannot do everything alone. Delegating shows your team that you can take a big project and break it down.

Problem Solving.

There are going to be many people with lots of ideas. If you can manage the project well and if you are a good people leader, great problem-solving is going to exist in that space.

Since delegating has so many benefits, it’s important to learn how to do it correctly. There are many strategies to implement effective delegating in the workplace:

Categorize priorities.

Get clear on what tasks need to be completed, what priority level they are, and who on your team would best complete them.

Know when and who to delegate tasks to.

This requires studying your team. You need to know your team members, their strengths, and who’s best fit to complete certain tasks. Know who has potential as well and give them the needed space to grow.

Give clear instructions.

Your team is going to need clear direction on what to do and what freedoms and boundaries they have. It’s challenging to work for a leader when you don’t know what’s expected and why, so make sure to explain your reasoning in your clear instructions. Your job doesn’t end there; however, you must continue to check in as a delegator to make sure it’s going smoothly and that you support them.

Be grateful.

When you delegate, your whole team is working together, and the skill sets they each bring are valuable. Make sure they know this and that you appreciate the work they are doing.

When Heather coaches leaders on delegation and they gradually learn to let go and trust their teams, so much more gets done. The leaders Heather works with feel freer and more able to do what they’re good at once they let their team do the work they were hired to do. When you begin to implement delegation in the workplace and practice it continuously, you will see your team begin to function like a well-oiled machine.