Here's how you can empower employees through delegation.

This is crucial! In relationship building, it’s important to demonstrate AND communicate to your staff that you not only my acknowledge their value to the work and organization but you also value and have identified their potential for leadership among the organization. This yields trust and builds a capacity for growth and reciprocal trust in named projects and initiatives. In this trust building it’s important we ensure we are not shoulder tapping the same folks but using different techniques to support and supervise others in different ways to help their build their leadership capacity whereas others naturally demonstrate it.

Public recognition about what each individual brings to the table, is an important part of this delegation. Recognise what they contribute now and willingness to build new skills.

One of the key areas of trust is for an employee to trust that you’re invested in their success. Delegation provides a huge opportunity for this, especially if you frame the conversation up beforehand. “I’ll be constantly looking for opportunities to give you more exposure to jobs I’d ordinarily do or give to someone else. This will accelerate your learning curve and show others what you can do.” Then, delegating tasks after this has instant context and buy-in. Of course you have to mean it. But it’s a great match when you need to stretch someone and they want to be stretched.

Consider the moments in early life when you were shown how to do something and then trusted to carry it out. It could have been babysitting at 12 or closing cash after a bar shift. How good did it feel? What skills and characteristics were you unknowingly building in those moments that have contributed to your current roles. Delegation, aka inviting responsibility while leading with clarity and trust, is a gift. Right fit employees will recognize that, and others will not. The trust you are looking for ultimately, is in knowing that no matter what happens (they rise or fall), you can hold yourself through that and be the person/leader you most want to be. Trusting/empowering or Fearful/witholding? The choice is always yours.

I once worked for a Scouse gardener called Fred. One day he asked me to cut the hedges. I was given an unusual tool for the job. But I did my best. Hours later he came to check on my progress and was more than a little alarmed. He had told me to cut the “edges” and the tool he had given me was for grass, not hedging. Because of his accent I had completely misunderstood. Fortunately the little old lady we were working for had mislaid her glasses that day, so she couldn’t see how badly I had butchered her privet! Fred spent a long time recutting it to make the hedge less like a heart trace. Its helpful to clarify what is meant before setting off on the task. Ask questions, get clarity, make sure you have the correct tool for the job!

Empowerment is the key word. Delegation is often regarded as no more than parcelling out jobs but what you really want from an employees is initiative and there’s no way to foster this without giving them some latitude to try and possibly even fail. So you need clarity to set off on the right course, freedom for them to act, but with the safety net of being able to bring their problems back to you without fear of judgement. Asking for help is initiative too. If you don’t empower people you will never grow them, you will never be able to let go and trust them, and they’ll never be able to show you (and themselves) what they can do. Fine - parcel out the jobs if you just want power and control. But if you want a team, empower them.

Sometimes process rather than impact targets are necessarily the best option for new or vaguely defined objective areas. This promotes people to try new approaches without the fear of judgement or criticism.

Offer professional development/training opportunities to enhance their skills and knowledge. This will boost their confidence and enable them to take on more challenging responsibilities. Empowering employees through delegation-facilitation requires a balance between providing support and autonomy. It promotes a sense of ownership and accountability, ultimately leading to a more engaged and productive workforce.

La retroalimentación es muy importante, pero lo más relevante para que generar un ambiente sano y de confianza es la manera en que se realiza, a la mayoría de los seres humanos les duele y afecta sus emociones, por eso es importante decirlo de una manera que la persona se siente cómoda y no es el típico sándwich, tú eres muy bueno pero…, el éxito está en explicar el cómo debería hacerse, después explicar cómo podemos mejorar y motivar a realizar lo mismo dentro de todo el equipo, no solo hacia el colaborador, si no de ida y regreso.

Delegation is a developmental process to get to full responsibility and full authority for an assignment. …Stage one - Watch me do it and let’s discuss your observations. …Stage two - let’s do it together and discuss your experience. …Stage three - now you do it and let’s discuss your experience and my observations. …Stage four - now it’s fully your responsibility and you have full authority. Until you reach stage four you have not yet fully delegated.

CONTEXT is important when delegating effectively. The Situational Leadership model (Blanchard & Hersey) helps you consider the readiness of your team members before you delegate to them. The level of competence and the level of engagement or commitment they have may determine the degree of direction and the level of support that you will need to arrange to delegate successfully. For example, you can delegate to a self-reliant achiever with basic direction and low support. A capable but cautious performer may not need much direction, but may require some encouragement to get launched. On the other hand, an enthusiastic beginner may not need much encouragement, but will need a high level of clear and detailed instruction.

It’s really important to note there is no “one size fits all” approach to managing a team. If you’re a new boss/team leader, it would be beneficial to meet with your team members 1:1 to find out what management style they work best under. Some people work best by being giving a task, resources, and a deadline, and being left to it. Others work better with more oversight, such as a Monday am check-in or a shared list of action items so you can track progress and follow up if you notice support is needed. And others might do better on projects/tasks that require working in pairs or small groups. Knowing these differences within your team will help you delegate tasks and projects so they can be completed more efficiently and successfully.