Five Steps to Delegation Success

Practical, data-driven ways to help leaders find the corporate holy grail—more time.

Delegation. Does the word fill you with dread? Or excitement? Or something in-between? Regardless of your feelings on the subject, delegation can create more high performers. So how do you get it right? Let’s go over the five key components to success for delegation. 

1. Use Data To Delegate
2. Delegate To All, Not Just Your Favorites
3. Match the Delegation Work to the Person
4. Delegate Authority, Not Just Tasks
5. Make Your Delegation Intentions Known

1. Use Data To Delegate

All of this starts with a leader doing a self-evaluation to identify their own opportunity. How many hours per week could I gain if I started doing my proper leadership job and delegating effectively? What do I need to start doing, stop doing, continue doing?  Why have I been reluctant to do so?

Then, they use data to understand their direct reports’ strengths and caution areas, motivators, and communication needs. It allows the leader to better understand their own capabilities as a delegator (what they might naturally do well and not do well) and what each direct report will need and respond best to. 

A leader can make a few critical adjustments with each person and maximize success. Using and understanding each team member’s strengths and motivators increases a leader’s EQ and their own confidence in delegating successfully. At MindWire, we shortcut this process by using the Predictive Index, but not having it will not stop a leader from effectively delegating, just slow them down a tad.

2. Delegating to All, Not Just Your Favorites

Too often, leaders are only really delegating to their best few, trusted, proven high performers–their usual suspects. The new definition of Delegation means that there is a delegation plan and process in place for every single member of the team, at all times–not just the high performers–along with an expectation of every employee that they will grow and enhance their impact. You can’t afford to have just a few oars in the water – all oars in the water means the boat goes faster, smoother and is balanced.

3. Matching the Delegation Work to the Person

“All Oars in the Water” does not mean a leader delegates arbitrarily.  In fact, it’s the opposite.  Leaders regularly evaluate the work and provide lower complexity, lower stakes, lower risk work to new, unproven, inexperienced or struggling employees and likewise, provide their most complex, high visibility, high stakes work to their highly proven, high performing (and often high potential) employees. 

This is a process, not an event that the leader takes time to periodically review and update, to meet changing needs of the organization and evolving capabilities of their employees.

The best leaders understand that they delegate work to everyone on their team. No exceptions.

4. Delegating Authority, Not Just Tasks

Effective leaders understand that the lion’s share of development (70%) comes from real work assignments, supported with training (10%), coaching and feedback (20%). These leaders also understand that the fastest and most effective way to drive development, ownership, productivity and engagement is to delegate real authority, not just tasks. They understand where they have the autonomy to send the work out and how to ensure their reputation shifts from creator of great work to multiplier of great work. 

Leaders will rightfully consider what that means for differing levels of employees, but nonetheless delegating real authority is a hallmark and a must.  Delegating real authority is one of the keys to getting time back for leaders and forces leaders to have necessary and important conversations about expectations, decision rights and processes, responsibility and accountability and other related items that are fundamentals of good performance–not just effective delegation.

5. Making Your Delegation Intentions Known.

Leaders who are delegating effectively use several techniques to hold themselves accountable. 

1. They build a plan for what they will start, stop and continue to be able to do their leadership job properly. 
2. They set a goal for how many hours they will gain back each month, as they work toward that goal.  
3. They communicate their intentions to their team, tell them what is in this delegation approach for them as employees (development, of course) and ask for their feedback and support to make it work in their organization. Effective leaders understand the nuances of “dumping work” onto their people vs. strategically and intentionally developing their team and positioning so that its a win for all. 
4. They track the impact against their goals to ensure they and their team are realizing the benefits of this new form of delegation.

In combination, these five steps for delegation will yield exponential results. So don’t stop before you even get started.

The Challenges of Delegation for Leaders

There is remarkable consistency in the challenges leaders have with delegation.

Many leaders come to the same conclusion when it comes to delegation.

As you’d suspect, there are naturally some challenges with helping leaders adopt this new definition of Delegation. Fortunately (or unfortunately, you decide) there are common themes as to why leaders aren’t delegating properly today and what is in their way.  

Here are the top reasons they list (and the vast majority of these people are high-quality, well-intentioned leaders):

• “They aren’t ready.”  
• “My people are too busy.” 
• “I would never ask someone to do something I can’t/don’t do myself.”  
• “I don’t have time to teach them.”  
• “I worry that…”  
• “If you want it done right, do it yourself.”  
• “I like doing this.”
• “I’m the best person on my team at doing this…”
• “I’m not sure where to start.”
• “It will get done faster if I just do it myself.”
• “It’s OK, I don’t like to take vacation, I like to work.”

You get the idea.

This has all the markings of a vicious cycle of burn out, overwhelm, and reduced bandwidth for leaders. 

Leaders are also hesitant to delegate fully because they aren’t sure what work to give to which of their people. Once they do delegate work, they struggle with how to effectively communicate, lead, motivate each person uniquely, and effectively to ensure success. 

There is one more critical stumbling block:  Leaders are often just delegating tasks, but not true authority. Delegating tasks without authority robs leaders of the time savings to do their roles correctly. Further, giving out tasks with no authority robs people of the fastest, most effective engagement, performance and development tool at their disposal:  employees who truly own the work.

Despite those challenges, there is reason for not just optimism, but conviction that leaders can, will and do overcome those challenges. Once leaders document and discuss what is in their way/why they aren’t delegating more, every single client group from the Delegate Like A Boss workshops with has come to these three same conclusions:

1. The problem is me, not my employees.
2. I actually have control and can do a lot about this. 
3. I need to start right now. 

Delegation can be your superpower