Business Leadership Skills Delegation Five (5) Potential

Business Leadership Skills

Delegation

Five (5) Potential Benefits of Delegation

The delegation process is very important for every manager as it is a way through which managers take help from others for driving the organizational performance. Some of the potential benefits of delegation are as follows (Weeks & Chan, 2004):

It gives time for the important and high priority work that can be done only by the person himself.

It increases the competence, skills and knowledge of the employees working under the manager and helps relieve stress of the manager himself.

It helps in identifying which employees have potential to get promoted.

It increases the morale of people, job satisfaction and motivation.

It helps the departments to achieve their targets and goals more efficiently due to proper selection and coordination of tasks.

Seven (7) Guidelines for Good Delegation

One of the common reasons behind the failure of less effective managers is that they try to take the responsibility of everything on their heads and in result they become overloaded and inefficient. Following are the seven guidelines of good delegation which help managers to be more effective (Smith, 2007).

1. Reasons for Delegating

Subordinates must know how delegation is good for them, their managers and for the organization.

1. Standards and Goals

Employees should also take part in formulating goals for the delegated task and must accept the criteria which will be used for measuring their performance. Their participation in the goals setting will help in successful delegation.

1. Authority and Responsibility

Employees should clearly know what authority and responsibility is assigned to them, for which they will be held answerable for results.

1. Involvement of Subordinates

Subordinates should be included in the decision making process and should also be informed about the progress; this enables them to improve their knowledge and skills in the delegated tasks.

1. Completion of Tasks

By giving the necessary assistance and help to the employees, manager can check if employees have completed their tasks according to the pre-decided standards and goals.

1. Performance Training

Managers should continuously train their workers in order to make the delegation effective.

1. Feedback

Accurate and timely feedback should be provided to the subordinates regarding their positive or negative performance, so that they move in the right direction.

Dumping: One of the Major Complaints of Subordinates Regarding Delegation

Dumping is one of the major complaints of the subordinates regarding delegation because many managers find it very difficult to let go. No matter how well they are trained about the issue of delegation, they don't learn how to delegate. In result they over delegate, i.e. they dump the work on the subordinates without realizing that the person is not capable enough to complete the required work in the given time (Warner, 2002).

A large number of subordinates are the victims of over delegation as their managers confused with the delegation concept dump work on them and do not realize that delegation is just a short-term contract which defines the tasks, objectives and gives direction. It is not simply an offloading of work which subordinates don't want to do or are unable to do. They don't understand that delegation is done with the purpose of lighten their load and for training subordinates. They just throw all workload on them and then expect them to handle it correctly.