The Art of Delegation

YOU CAN DELEGATE ALMOST ANYTHING TO ALMOST ANYONE IF YOU UNDERSTAND THAT DELEGATION IS NOT SIMPLY AN ON/OFF SWITCH

I was facilitating a group coaching call recently where I asked the attendees how their people leadership was going. A number indicated that they were under a lot of pressure and would benefit from increased delegation. I don’t think anyone on the call was familiar with the “7 Levels of Delegation” so I shared the model with them.??

Many first-time people leaders feel quite uncomfortable delegating work to their team members, feeling like they are unjustifiably dumping work on the direct reports. Here’s a list of some of the typical reasons why we don’t delegate when we should: ‘They might let me down’, ‘Failure will reflect poorly on my leadership’, ‘My team may think it’s unfair’, ‘It’s quicker if I do it myself’, ‘No one can do it as well as me’ and ‘I enjoy simple tasks that I good at’. Many of these reasons relate to my level of discomfort and how I feel about myself. One of the key ways to increasingly delegate tasks that are way down on the importance scale is to view the act of delegation in terms of its benefits which include: ‘Your team getting upskilled’, ‘People value challenging tasks and the opportunity to grow’, ‘The people leader can focus on more important (and often non-urgent) tasks’, ‘The team feel more trusted and valued’, and ‘It’s better for the business as a whole’.?

However, the challenge with delegating is that many people leaders view this aspect of leadership as an on/off switch- it’s black and white whether I can or can’t delegate this task to a particular member of my team.?

So, I want to tell you about the seven levels of delegation which help us to view this aspect of leadership as a continuum rather than delegation simply being a matter of yes or no, I?can?or I can’t.?

I like to represent the seven levels as a staircase with seven steps which are:??

The primary reason we don’t delegate is that we don’t trust that the task will be completed to an adequate level of satisfaction. Regardless of whether this lack of confidence is real or perceived, the key issue in delegation is trust. This, however, is something of a Catch-22 - how can I give a task to a team member when I don’t trust that they are competent enough to complete the task??But how will trust grow without me giving them an appropriate opportunity to prove their trustworthiness? This is where the seven levels of delegation are such a helpful concept. The second reason we don’t delegate is because of the potential cost in terms of time, resources, quality, customer impact or any other genuine concerns.?However?if we look at the seven levels of delegation, we see that certainly the first four levels (and even possibly the fifth level) are relatively risk-free because they don’t involve what I call a hands-on delegated task. Because of this but are great low-cost opportunities for team members to prove their trustworthiness.?

Need more help with your leadership journey, either personally or corporately? Contact Glen Sharkey for keynotes and workshops on the subject: [email protected], or check out www.thelifeworkscompany.com (for training), or www.glensharkey.com (for keynotes)?

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