Learning To Trust The Process Of Delegation
For many leaders, learning to trust the process of delegation can be quite difficult. Often, leaders have a hard time giving up control over the small details, especially when they come into a new role. But it is quite simply impossible to handle all of the responsibilities of work by yourself—a CEO can’t work on every project, or communicate with every employee. Today’s leaders must be managers who place their trust in competent team leaders who handle projects and manage people well!
You Can’t Manage Everything By Yourself
Managing all of the projects that your company is handling is difficult enough when you have team leaders that you delegate to. It is virtually impossible to try to handle all of the work on your own when you aren’t delegating. Most manager’s responsibilities span across wide spectrums where it’s impossible to know every detail or be an expert in everything, yet there are plenty of extremely talented managers at work who believe that they have to be involved in everything. They keep a strong hold of all the reins and manage every single turn that is made, not recognizing that they are micro managing often equally talented employees! Leaders that recognize their need for control early on learn that they need to find skilled managers that they can trust. Only leaders who learn to delegate will eventually race to the finish line… all others will sooner or later fall at any of the hurdles put in their way.
Have Trust In Your Team And Their Individual Strengths
If you don’t have trust in your team, then you aren’t going to put them in a position to be successful. If you are going to successfully delegate tasks, then you need a team that you trust to get the job done effectively. Each individual is different, and has their own skillset. You might find that some employees are better communicators than others, and some might be better at solving complex problems. Figure out the individual strengths of your team and how you can leverage those strengths to better the entire company. Instead of micromanaging your people set them free. Trust in their ability to learn and grow, and spend time to make them successful!
How Do You Prioritize Your Tasks?
Every good delegator needs to learn how to prioritize tasks. Without prioritizing tasks, leaders can spend too much time on low priority tasks, leaving little time, effort, or resources for high priority tasks that require their attention. A good thing to do is to create a task priority system, where all team members can check and see the priority level of a new task.
The process of delegation takes some time to master. It isn’t easy to hand over control, especially early on for leaders in a new role. But evidence shows that leaders who can successfully delegate run much more efficient operations than those who cannot. Leaders that can’t delegate find themselves trying to handle everything, wasting valuable time and effort on low priority tasks. Great leaders learn to become comfortable with a certain amount of calculated “risk”. They know that they can’t control everything and they embrace every way to make their businesses more productive and efficient!
* Like a Boss image credit goes to: Brooke Lark.
* Usability Test image credit goes to: David Travis.