Management Training – Page 43 – STL

Delegating tasks successfully frees up valuable time for you time, helps you to develop your people, enables your to better understand their strengths and weaknesses, and motivates members to perform. Poor delegation or a lack of it can slow work down, demotivate your team and cause negative conflict. Here are 4 Habits for Successful Delegation STL have identified as essential if you want to delegate the right way and build a productive and efficient team.

Involve the Team Early

Once you have your goal, great delegation is set up effectively by developing awareness, which lays the foundation for great performances amongst your team members. Most importantly, this comes down to communication. Follow this three-step process to kick-start the delegation process:

Communicate your vision with your team.
Deepen your vision by communicating long-term detail.
Reinforce the importance of individual contribution.

Provide Reasons

Once you have established the importance of individual contributions, now is the time to reach out to those individual members are so important to the success of the initiative. If people understand the opportunity, why are they being asked to do something and why it matters they are more likely to buy in and focus their time on it. Therefore, rather than simply providing business context, share your reasons.

As one of the three modes of persuasion, logic is convincing because if you make a case for why you have identified a particular person for a job, they will understand your rational and see the request as genuine.

You will motivate them if you tell them why it matters to you.

Otherwise, doubt and suspicion can creep in, both of which impact on the levels of trust between you and your team.

Visualise Success

Setting clear expectations enables you and your team members to manoeuvre throughout the project. With vaguely defined goals, managers and subordinates lose focus, get frustrated and stressed because the reasons why things are going wrong are either deeply contentious or impossible to define.

When you are delegating a task:

Explain the desired result in detail.
Set clear expectations about what you envisage as successful outcomes.
Explain how the task ties into the bigger picture.
Provide criteria for measuring success: this should not only give team members of an unbiased way of looking at the result but also enables them to track their performance and make modifications, so they are best placed to deliver great results.

Confirm Understanding

Besides that, once you have explained clearly what is required it is vital to confirm the team member you are delegating to fully understands the request.

This will prevent a mismatch between what you have asked for and their interpretation, which almost inevitably results in frustration and conflict, but most importantly jeopardises the success delivery of the task.

In Summary…

Great delegation can help you achieve incredible things with your team. Laying a foundation through clear communication is essential. Sharing your vision with the team before you meet with individuals lays a strong foundation for success.

When you do meet with individuals providing reasons for involving them, setting clear and detailed expectations about the outcomes you envisage and getting them to confirm their understanding will limit risks, launch activities, monitor progress and achieve great results.

With so much at stake in corporate development, leadership is perhaps the single greatest key in finding the correct decision and then making it count. Here are four principles to help you develop a strong leadership presence and authority.

Planning –

Finding all the information required can be a challenging process however the best guide is to maintain focus on the company objectives. Know what you want to achieve and don’t substitute an emotional direction over a logical one. Having a clear purpose of what you want and how you would see success, can filter the correct information and raise actions as the catalyst.

Training can be a unique solution to fill the obvious gaps however your vision as a leader-with-a-plan can be even more potent in building momentum, especially when shared.

Be prepared for objections, people don’t like change and the why it won’t work must be expected.

Organising –

With a plan comes the task of organisation, though delegation will be one of your strongest tools, prioritisation and time management will be the laws that govern completion. Allow open and frank discussion to engage key figures in the plan.

With others, a clear objective and description of what success will look like will be paramount. Ensure 1-2-1 meetings are given to those who need buy-in. Give them value through responsibility. Getting opinions aired safely will help build trust and challenge problems with options.

Leading –

This is where your personality and character can set the tone. Be prepared for negotiation and conflicts. The latter can be offset by ensuring clear guidance is offered along with support through regular meetings. Be prepared to continually update and refocus energy.

Align the skills required with the work needing to be done and review key personnel through their CV’s and performance appraisals. Make sure you know who the people are that work for you. How they like to work and manage their day.

How they see success in their role.

Ask yourself am I allowing people to grow in their work? Some will love challenge and diversity while others will find comfort and productivity in routine. As a leader you understand the motivators for each behaviour type and the attitude needed to see the work completed.

Every task becomes a sounding board to learn about the individuals and how they best work as a team, so don’t be afraid to try things. When you find a strategy that works use it.

Far too many times a leader will put a goal/reward in place that works then fail to keep it consistent and every time they do this their sincerity is questioned.

Controlling –

Identify performance and efficiency and celebrate what achieved the best results for all concerned. Be a leader of influence rather than a dictator. Far better to build an environment where each voice is given value and thereby allowed to own a difficult position. At the end of the day your strongest controls will be feedback and the data reviewed to identify trends in a concise and logical manner.

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