The Art of Delegating - How to Get Other People to Do Your Work

Are you one of those people who doesn't trust anyone else to do what needs to be done? Some people can't bear anyone else to help them in any way. They don't trust anyone to do a job as well as they can. It is not surprising that they then get overwhelmed by work and complain that they have far too much to do. It is their own fault. If they learnt to delegate they could have much more time available. You can learn to delegate and save much of your time.

Why delegate?
Delegating has advantages other than saving you time and freeing you to work on tasks that are important in your scheme of things and that will benefit the company more. If you delegate effectively, your staff will become more skilled and committed. This will contribute to the success of your team and section and the company as a whole. It will also show how good your managerial qualities are - a good point for promotion.

Effective delegation means that although decisions are taken lower down in the pecking order they are taken nearer to where the work is being done and problems occur. Your staff will often have a much better idea of what needs to be done than you do. That means that they can make decisions faster, and probably better. This, too, reinforces the successful image of you and your staff.

So, by delegating you can save time for more important work and improve the effectiveness and morale of your staff. So what's stopping you?

What happens if you don't delegate?
If you fail to delegate when possible and appropriate, you create a burden for yourself. Your staff will not have the authority, responsibility or information to make decisions themselves. They will lack confidence and become unable to take criticism. The result is that they will try to refer back to you whenever they can. That means you will be subjected to a string of interruptions. You are likely to respond by offering to deal with any problems just to stop the flow of staff to your door. But that means you will end up doing their work as well as yours. You will run out of time and your staff will run out of work. In the end it will be your staff who will be checking up on you to find out what progress has been made on work that they should have been doing.

Harriet, a conscientious middle manager in a clothing company, didn't believe in delegating work. She didn't trust anyone else to do it to her own exacting standards. Her staff became demoralized and resentful and her day was interrupted by her staff who constantly had to consult her about minor matters that they could have dealt with. It was not until a major contract was lost because Harriet failed to complete a project on time that she began to take delegation seriously.

This should be enough to convince you that delegating and empowering your staff is not only sensible but necessary if you are to do your own work well.