Skip to content

UXL Blog

“Creating Successful Leaders”

Tag Archives: leadership and delegation

June 21, 2023 6 Tips to Boost Your Delegation Skills as a Leader

Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash

If you’re like many leaders, you earned your position through hard work, resilience, and effectiveness. You know you have what it takes to get things done and forge ahead. These are great qualities, BUT they may make you reluctant to trust others with jobs that you could just do yourself. Here’s the reality: you cannot, and should not, do everything yourself. Doing so will make your leadership less effective, will convey that you do not trust your team, and will obligate you to continue working on detailed tasks when you should be looking at the bigger picture. So, delegate!

To become a more effective delegator, try these 6 tips:

1. Extend Trust

It can be challenging to let go and trust others to do a job as well as you could. However, it’s essential to extend trust to your team members. You hired them for their expertise, so let them use their skills to shine. When you trust your team, you’re not only empowering them, but you’re also freeing up your time to focus on tasks that require your attention and specialized skills.

2. Clearly Communicate Expectations

One of the primary reasons delegation fails is due to unclear or unrealistic expectations. It’s crucial to communicate what you want done, how you want it done, and by when. Be sure to provide context and instructions that detail the scope of work to minimize confusion. To learn more about clarity in communication, check out my video on the subject.

3. Provide Resources

To ensure your team can deliver on your expectations, provide them with the essential resources needed to complete the job. These could include financial support, equipment, tools, or software. Providing these resources ensures your team can effectively do their job and prevents them from feeling like they’ve been set up for failure. Remember: you can also be a resource! Be sure to emphasize to your team that they can approach you with any question, roadblock, or concern.

4. Allow for Different Approaches to a Problem

People have different styles and, therefore, different approaches to solving problems. As a leader, it’s essential to recognize and value these differences. Encourage your team to tackle problems in their own way, and you may find that they come up with innovative solutions you hadn’t even thought of. When I was a leader at 3M, I periodically let my team brainstorm solutions without me, and if they missed the mark, I gave them a little guidance and had them try again. I was always amazed at the creativity and innovation that bubbled up during those sessions!

5. Don’t Micromanage

Related to allowing for difference approaches, it’s also essential to not micromanage your team. Micromanaging sends the message that you don’t trust others to do the work. It’s also a waste of time and energy. Once you’ve given clear instructions, trust your team to execute the job in their way. Be available to offer guidance or answers to questions but avoid constantly checking in to see how things are progressing.

6. Provide Feedback

It’s easy to forget that delegating is a two-way street. Just as you expect your team to deliver on their expectations, they expect feedback on their performance. Provide constructive feedback that acknowledges their achievements and points out areas that could be improved upon. This will empower them to grow and take on more significant responsibilities in the future.

Delegation may seem challenging at first, but by implementing these six tips, you can become a better delegator, free up your time, and empower your team members. Remember, delegation is a leadership skill that you can develop and perfect over time. Don’t be afraid to delegate tasks and responsibilities, as this will not only help you achieve your goals but also provide growth opportunities for your team members. So, start delegating today and see the positive impact it has on your team’s productivity and success!

MARGARET SMITH IS A CAREER COACH, AUTHOR, INSIGHTS® DISCOVERY (AND DEEPER DISCOVERY) LICENSED PRACTITIONER, AND FOUNDER OF UXL. SHE HOSTS WORKSHOPS FOR PEOPLE WHO NEED CAREER OR PERSONAL GUIDANCE. 
CHECK OUT MARGARET’S ONLINE LEADERSHIP COURSE. 

Tags: , , , , ,

June 29, 2022 Why Delegation is a Career-Builder

If you’re like many ambitious individuals I know, you work hard and follow that old axiom: “If you want something done right, it’s best to do it yourself.” This, however, is flawed thinking. By taking on everything yourself, you’ll get bogged down and caught up in work that may be ill-suited to your talents (and, perhaps, better suited to others). Instead, it’s better for yourself and your career to delegate.

Delegation isn’t lazy. It’s an essential tool for propelling your career, improving results, developing your personal brand, and keeping your workload under control.

The fact is, 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 and trust others to take on certain tasks. If you’re a perfectionist, you may be thinking, “How can I possibly entrust others with work that I know I can do better myself?”

For one, you don’t know you can do something “better” unless you let others have a fair shake. Secondly, don’t confuse “better” with “different” (others may take a different approach, and that’s definitely not a bad thing). Third, skillful delegation may take a bit of training at first. You might have to teach someone else how to do a certain task, but that’s part of the process. Share your insights, know-how, and expectations. Make it clear that you’re available to answer any questions or provide feedback.

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 most vital 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 for hosting a BBQ—send the invites, clean the house and yard, prep the food, etc.—creating processes for sharing tasks at work will cut down on confusion and clutter, and will save you time in the long run.

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 can be delegated to another member of your team instead.

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

Tags: , , , , , ,

May 9, 2018 Delegating at Work is Like Hosting a BBQ

BBQ and Delegation

Your perfect barbecue goes something like this:

  • You create the perfect guest list (people you enjoy hanging out with and who get along well with each other)
  • Each guest takes on the responsibility of making a different dish (something they’re good at making!)
  • On the day of the event, everyone enjoys a delicious spread of food and each other’s company.
  • Even if it rains or someone spills the potato salad, you’ll still have the makings of an excellent get together.

Of course, not every BBQ turns out this way. You might encounter drama between guests, or you may end up with seven different desserts, but no potato chips or veggie tray. The trick is knowing your guests’ personalities, knowing their strengths, and delegating effectively.

You can probably already draw parallels between the perfect BBQ and delegating to a work team, but let you give me my take on it:

When you’re leading a team, it’s difficult (and frankly inadvisable) to do everything yourself. If you tried to cook everything for a twenty-person barbecue, you’d end up pulling out your hair and not having much fun.

At work, the stakes are higher. If you’re working on a project, you’ll have deadlines to meet, stakeholders to please, and a team to attend to. Instead of taking on the bulk of the work yourself, TRUST that your team is capable enough to shoulder some of the burden.

Not only will delegating tasks to others lighten your load, it will help your team members feel like they are important parts of the work (just like the people at your BBQ who are providing the watermelon or deviled eggs).

Furthermore, delegating adds diversity of thought.

Your team members will inevitably do things a little differently than what you might have done on your own, and THAT’S OKAY. It’s great to work with a diverse set of ideas—that’s what drives innovation. Just like the person who brings a unique dish (grilled asparagus and ricotta pizza, anyone?), you will find creative new ideas through your team that you might not have found on your own.

Just make sure everyone is well-suited to their tasks.

In the workplace, certain people will love crunching numbers and digging into strategy. Others will love idea-generation. Still others will take pleasure in the artist elements of a project.

The better you know your team members, the better you can assign tasks. Just like you know Bill makes delectable beer-battered chicken, but you wouldn’t trust him to know merengue from tapioca pudding, so too should you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your team.

Don’t forget to make things fun.

One of the keys to successful delegation is making sure people are working well together, connecting, and facing any issues with a positive attitude and a problem-solving mentality. Day-to-day work doesn’t have to be a grind. If everyone is well-suited to their tasks and the team is keeping an affable, open line of communication between one another, the work can actually be (gasp!) fun.

You can also amp up the fun factor by hosting lunch-and-learn meetings, creating light-hearted challenges, raising money for a cause, or going on the occasional team outing. Though these may seem like frivolous activities to some, they are actually great ways to help your team members connect with one another, build a sense of camaraderie, and help YOU better understand what makes the people on your team tick. Having a deep understanding of your team members is crucial to effective delegation.

 

So, make a plan, start delegating, and get ready to fire up that grill!

MARGARET SMITH IS A CAREER COACH, AUTHOR, INSIGHTS®DISCOVERY LICENSED PRACTITIONER, FOUNDER OF UXL, AND CO-FOUNDER OF THE TAG TEAM. SHE HOSTS WORKSHOPS FOR PEOPLE WHO NEED CAREER OR PERSONAL GUIDANCE. YOU CAN VISIT HER WEBSITE AT WWW.YOUEXCELNOW.COM

Tags: , , , , , , , ,