Effective delegation is one of the most important skills a team leader or manager can develop. Having other team members handle various tasks within a project frees up team leaders and managers to focus their attention on other areas. When a manager has a team that can be relied upon to handle different tasks, the need for micromanagement disappears and productivity can drastically increase.
One of the hardest aspects of effective leadership is learning how to delegate effectively among team members. Some managers are so convinced that they are the only individuals capable of performing a certain task that they simply refuse to let others take on some of the workload.
These managers need to learn to let go.
How can they do that? They can start by delegating small tasks and observing how those are handled. When the smaller tasks are performed to their satisfaction, they can move on to letting others handle some of the larger, more complex tasks.
Another important aspect of effective delegation is to know when to delegate.
Most managers have a wide working knowledge of many skills. While this is good for the purpose of being able to provide a wide “overview” of a job that needs to be done, it can be less than effective if a manager doesn’t have an intricate knowledge or expertise in some aspects of a project needing to be completed.
When that happens, the ideal solution is to delegate that portion to the project to someone who has greater experience or expertise. This allows the project to be completed in a timely manner and also has the additional benefit of allowing a team member to develop and grow their skills, which is what a strong and effective manager always seeks to do.
Lastly, when it comes to effective delegation, it’s important to understand the debriefing process. It provides an excellent learning experience.
This provides the team leader with the opportunity to understand, review, and assess how the entire process was handled and how the outcome was reached. It also shows how others on the team dealt with problems and how they resolved those issues.
The more effective delegation becomes, the more potential there is for undertaking more complicated and complex projects.