UXL Blog

By Margaret Smith
SPEAKER | CAREER COACH | CERTIFIED INSIGHTS® DISCOVERY PRACTITIONER
Contrary to what you may expect, promoting the talents of others can actually help to showcase your own skills and strengthen your brand. This magical habit is called delegation, and it’s an essential tool to propelling your own career, improving results, developing your personal brand, and keeping your workload under control.

Let’s all start by taking a moment to acknowledge the often-ignored fact: There is only a limited amount you can do, no matter how hard you work. Because we are not super-humans, it’s essential that we learn to let go sometimes.

This having been said, there is a way to get it all done, and done well: delegation. Often, delegation gets overlooked as a viable tool because it is a lot of work upfront. Instead of doing the task yourself, delegation requires you to share your insights, know-how, and expectations with others.

To Delegate, or Not to Delegate: That is the Question

When faced with a new task, don’t just jump into it right away. Instead, ask yourself, “Would this task be a worthy use of my time?” If you continue to accept projects that don’t align to, or properly utilize, your skills, you’re diluting your brand. Perhaps there is someone else who has the skills to do the task better, or who would be eager to develop skills that the task would involve?

Strategically delegating tasks to others allows you to focus on the tasks that reinforce your real skills—those you want to be known for as part of your personal brand. (If you haven’t yet considered what your personal brand is, now is the time to start!)

How to Handle the “Who?”

When considering who to delegate to, take into account the following questions:

• What are this person’s skills and knowledge?
• Does this person currently have space in their workload?
• What is this person’s preferred work style?

Once you have decided on the best candidate, don’t forget to document the process. When practicing delegation, it’s extremely important to keep track of your processes to save time in the future and develop best practices that promote clarity and efficiency. Just as you, say, develop practices that keep your house clean—washing dishes after meals, placing laundry in a hamper, etc.—creating processes for sharing tasks at work will cut down on confusion and clutter, not to mention saving time and preventing mistakes.

Your Challenge:

Next time you’re feeling overwhelmed by your workload, fight the urge to dive headfirst into your pile of tasks. Instead, assess these projects and consider whether or not some of them can be delegated to another member of your team instead.

Do you have any helpful tips about delegating effectively? Please share!

Interested in navigating the changes in your life, finding success in your job hunt, or making the most of your career? Contact UXL Today!

Tags: Delegation, Margaret Smith, more out of your career, thrive at work, UXL, Who to Delegate to