Good leadership doesn’t require you to be involved in everything. You don’t have to do all the decision-making or hold responsibility for all the small tasks and project milestones. In fact, a respected leader and mentor knows when to take a step back, prioritise their time well and lead by example.
Delegation is essential for ensuring a business achieves its goals, establishing management authority in the workplace and protecting the energy of managers and leaders. It encourages collaboration, enhances team skill sets, knowledge and performance and increases manager accountability.
Understanding Delegation
Verb: Entrust (a task or responsibility) to another person, typically one who is less senior than oneself.
For influential leaders, mastering the art of delegation is crucial for achieving productive outcomes and maintaining an efficient workplace. Effective delegation not only enhances team productivity and trust but also allows leaders to focus on higher-level objectives and strategic tasks, personal development and time management.
Despite its importance, some leaders face challenges when implementing delegation strategies for several reasons.
- Feeling threatened. Some managers worry that handing over certain tasks may make their role seem redundant. However, the purpose of delegation is to free up your time to focus on larger projects, strategic planning and skill development. A team will always require a leader for support and mentorship and delegating won’t negate this.
- Not trusting their team. It can be tempting for leaders to take on tasks themselves rather than delegating them. Learning to perform a new task takes time, but it’s important to trust junior team members and appreciate the long-term productivity and performance benefits of delegation.
- Wanting to work on exciting projects. As the most senior team member, you’re often required to work on the most important tasks which may not always align with your personal areas of interest.
- Worrying about team burnout. Some managers avoid delegating as they feel like they’re dumping work on their colleagues. However, many team members value the opportunity to work on fresh tasks and develop different skill sets. Ensuring you clearly communicate the reasons for delegation is key.
As a manager, you have a responsibility to look after yourself too. Over 50% of managers are burned out. Refusal to delegate can be detrimental to team success.
Tools for Effective Delegation
Integrating sprints into your team workflow is especially useful whilst delegating tasks. A sprint is a time-bound period during which the team must complete a set of tasks. They can help your team stay focused, accomplish more work in less time, prevent bottlenecks, and collaborate efficiently.
In addition to sprints, there are many digital tools, project management software and communication platforms that managers can leverage to facilitate effective leadership and delegation.
Allocating tasks on Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams serves as a centralised platform for managing and delegating tasks, integrating seamlessly with Microsoft Outlook and Planner.
The Tasks app in Teams brings together tasks from Planner, To Do, and Outlook, and allows you to oversee and assign the work you’ve delegated. You can set deadlines and track progress, which is essential for maintaining a sense of control.
Syncing tasks from Outlook provides you with a useful view of all your responsibilities, making it easier to prioritise and delegate tasks efficiently.
Assigning Tags to Team Members
The tags feature in Microsoft Teams enables you to quickly reach a group of people all at once. This is particularly useful if you manage a big team and need to delegate to multiple individuals across different roles and responsibilities. Tagging team members based on their roles and responsibilities allows you to streamline communication and increase efficiency.
Conditional Formatting
Applying conditional formatting rules to your email inbox can significantly improve how you manage delegation. For example, if you delegate a project to a team member, you can use Microsoft Outlook’s conditional formatting feature to automatically colour-code all emails related to that project. This could include emails from the project leader or messages containing specific keywords related to tasks, issues, or project performance. By setting up these rules, you can quickly identify which communications need to be forwarded to your team members, saving time and streamlining your workflow.
Another useful rule is to highlight emails where you are the sole recipient. This helps you quickly identify messages that haven’t been sent to anyone else on your team and therefore require your direct attention and action.
Here’s a handy guide explaining how to master conditional formatting.
Invest in training
In some cases, there may not be anyone on your team ready to take on some of the tasks you need to delegate. Workplace training can combat this issue.
Investing in regular education that provides an opportunity for your employees to refresh and develop skills should already be a priority. However, additional training opportunities are even more crucial as workloads grow and change.
Techniques for Effective Delegation
For delegation to be successful, it’s important that you plan, communicate clearly and feedback effectively to avoid any potential issues arising.
Step 1: Identify tasks to delegate.
You can use the six T’s method to determine which tasks you should hand over to other team members.
- Tiny. Small inconsequential tasks that aren’t important or urgent but need to be completed. For example, registering for a conference or event.
- Tedious. Simple, repetitive tasks that others can handle with minimal guidance, such as basic data entry or filing.
- Time-consuming. More complex tasks that only require your expertise towards the end of the assignment. For example, analysis at the end of a research project.
- Teachable. Additional training may be needed initially, but delegation will save you time in the long-term. This is particularly applicable to recurring tasks like weekly reports.
- Terrible at. Delegating tasks that you know someone else can complete to a higher standard shows strong self-awareness and appreciation for your team.
- Time sensitive. Urgent tasks needing immediate attention that can be handled by a colleague to meet deadlines efficiently.
Step 2: Choose the right person for the task.
A good team leader should know the differing abilities within their team. Often, choosing the most skilled team member for the job is a sensible decision, particularly in time-sensitive situations.
To motivate staff and encourage progression, use non-urgent tasks as a growth opportunity for employee development and to boost team morale.
Step 3: Clearly communicate expectations.
Remember that this assignment might be completely new to the assignee. Take the necessary time to set your expectations, including deadlines and quality requirements. Now is a good time to provide them with any necessary resources, too.
Establish preferences around channels of communication. This could be weekly in-person meetings, phone check-ins or online messaging on Microsoft Teams or other platforms.
Step 4: Monitor progress without micromanaging.
Putting complete trust in the team member you have chosen to complete the task on your behalf is a key method for success. If you notice yourself micromanaging a project, take accountability for this and reset.
Step 5: Provide feedback and support.
Whilst you supervise from afar, you should still act as a mentor throughout the task or project. Offer constructive feedback and be available for guidance to help team members succeed, grow, and enhance their performance and capabilities. Remember positive recognition too. It’s a great way to empower your colleagues.
Start Delegating Today
What can you do today to start delegating and managing your energy? Start by working through the tips in this blog and identifying tasks you can delegate. This will help you streamline your workload and empower and motivate your employees to grow, enhance individual and group creativity, and develop a positive team culture.
Priority Management is your trusted leader in workspace solutions. We offer professional development courses for a range of programs. Get in touch today to ensure your team is ready to take on additional responsibility.