Delegation isn’t just about offloading tasks from your plate. It’s about encouraging growth, cultivating potential, and challenging your team to develop.
When you delegate effectively, you’re not just sending off an assignment and wiping your hands clean. It’s a meticulous process that involves setting clear success criteria, defining expectations, and painting a clear picture of what great looks like.
The key to effective delegation lies in the initial conversation. When you’re assigning a task or project, it’s crucial to meet with the accountable person and provide them with a comprehensive understanding of what needs to be done. This includes outlining the success criteria, expectations, and what success looks like. The person on the receiving end must fully commit to the task, understand it thoroughly, and be prepared to ask questions or request resources if needed.
But here’s what most leaders get wrong:
You can’t just hand over the task and disappear.
Effective delegation requires continuous engagement. Set a cadence for regular follow-ups and progress updates. This ensures that the person remains on track and feels supported. They should know that they can still ask for help and seek clarification whenever necessary.
However, there’s a common misconception that needs to be addressed. Often, leaders fear assigning tasks that might be too difficult. They worry about overwhelming their team members.
But here’s the truth: under-challenging your team is a far greater disservice than over-challenging them. When you don’t provide enough of a challenge, you’re stunting their growth and development.
It’s essential to let people struggle. Yes, you read that right. Allowing your team to face challenges and adversity is crucial for their growth. When you solve every problem for them or remove the struggle, you’re robbing them of the opportunity to think critically, experiment, fail, and try again. This process of grappling with challenges is where true learning happens.
More often than not, managers tend to pull back when they see their team struggling. They step in to solve the problem because they know the solution or have already solved similar issues in the past. But this approach is counterproductive. Instead, let your team sit with the struggle. Encourage them to think critically and come up with solutions on their own. This is how they develop resilience and problem-solving skills.
So, the next time you’re delegating a task or project, ask yourself:
Are you challenging your team enough? Are you providing them with opportunities to grow, even if it means they might struggle?
Remember, the goal of delegation is not just to get things done, but to build a stronger, more capable team.
