The ability to delegate allows us to focus on high-priority activities. This is crucial, especially as we advance in our way and start to take on larger projects. Delegation also gives your teams the chance to grow their skills and test their abilities. Absolutely, you create a win-win situation and you as a team achieve great things by delegation.

Common obstacles preventing delegation

It’s important to understand why you might avoid delegation. We will discuss about few common things that prevents delegation.

#1 It takes time

It’s true that delegation requires investment of time.

When you’re overloaded with work, you probably don’t want to take time out of your schedule to show someone else how to do a task that would take you just a short time to complete.

However, your initial time investment will repay you soon. When it repeats, it requires less time and effort on your part, since the other person now knows how to do it

#2 Afraid that he/she won’t be complete correctly

Many people avoid delegating because they’re afraid that the person they’re delegating to won’t complete the task correctly, or with the same level of quality.

While this concern is valid, you can avoid this problem by giving the other person enough guidance and support, and by setting clear goal and necessary resources. Remember this is your short term work to gain long term benefits.

#3 I believe others can’t do this job

Firstly, you shouldn’t think that you’re the only person who can competently complete all of the tasks. You might be the only one doing these jobs, but this doesn’t mean that you can’t pass on your knowledge and skills to others.

Remember, both you and the people you delegate to will benefit from this: you free up your time to focus on high-value tasks of your organization, while others learn new skills that can aid them in their own skill-building.

#4 I can do better than others

The tasks that you should delegate are the ones that you’ve already mastered. You might even find them easy. However, these routine tasks don’t grow your knowledge and skills, so the longer you do them, the less progress you’ll make in your career.

These even stop you from working on new projects and objectives that you need to complete to help your organization to grow. You right decision is more valuable to your company, and you’ll create greater opportunities to others by delegating the tasks. Invest your skills to work in new ways.

#5 Micromanager style

Micromanagers have a difficult time with delegation because they don’t trust others to do a job correctly, without supervision. Remember once again that you can achieve great things by delegation.

#6 100% perfection

If you’re a perfectionist, you’ll likely have a difficult time with delegation, because you won’t trust someone else to complete a task to your “perfect” standards. There are positive and negative perfections

Positive perfection: Work on developing your people’s skills. Your standards are always rising, and you approach work with optimism.

Negative perfection: You may experience fear of failure, doubt, and other negative emotions. You care deeply about what others think of you.

Define what to delegate

1. List your routine tasks and time consuming to complete
2. Categories critical, non-critical routine tasks
3. Define what to delegate and what not to, based on risk, based on skills, and based on your best criteria.

Define whom to delegate

Once you are clear with what to delegate from your routine tasks, now it is time to choose right people from your team, to delegate the tasks. To facilitate, few criteria listed below.

1. People with great potential but lowest level of responsibility within the organization.
2. They are with unique skills and competencies that matches your delegation need
3. Employees looking for potential personal development
4. Look for low workload holders, to improve the productivity
5. Reliable people are the most preferred choice or any high priority tasks.

Build your team’s confidence

Confident team members are more likely to see opportunities in the tasks you delegate

Skill development

People naturally feel more confident, when they have strong skills. They can accomplish tasks. Give your team members right number of opportunities to learn and grow, and provide trainings, aiming to build their skills.

Set and work with clear goals

Do not work aimlessly, goals define success. Make sure that the people on your team work towards a clear goal.

When they reach even small milestones, celebrate their achievements and speak about how well they’ve done. Encourage them to take on bigger and better projects in the future.

Show them that you have belief on them

You need to make it clear that you believe in their abilities, and that you’re confident they can handle increased responsibilities.

How to delegate

You know clearly what to delegate and whom to. You have to set a healthy meeting with respective people, and communicate clearly the delegation, include the below subjects. Remember once again that you can achieve great things by delegation.

1. Explain why this delegation is important for him/her
2. Explain how important it is for the organization
3. Openly express your expectations
4. Communicate clearly the milestones
5. Set the goals
6. Define review mechanism and frequency
7. Define authority level (Decision making power for the subjected tasks)
8. Resources, other supports.

Monitor the progress

It is understood that the other person is responsible for the task once you’ve delegated it, you still need to monitor his work and ensure that it meets your expectations.

Use the milestones and goals that you agreed on in your delegation plan, and conduct your review regularly.

As you get more comfortable with delegation, the process will become easier. You are on the right path of success, achieve great things by delegation.