Effective Leadership #14 - Delegating Tasks

Hello Steemians! Welcome to yet another article in Effective Leadership Series. Managing time is very important for a leader. Effective time management helps in organizing tasks and increasing productivity. Delegating tasks to the team can be very helpful in time management. A leader need not necessarily be on top of everything. Some tasks can be delegated to the team members and it can just be reviewed by the leader. It will be sufficient if a leader gets frequent updates on a particular task where someone else will do the task for them. In such cases, the leader will be able to just get updates. There are many advantages in delegating tasks. It will help in enhancing the skills of a team member. Along with that, it will help a leader focus more on their own responsibilities and exercise control.

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Delegating helps in increasing your time

It is quite challenging for every managers and leader to focus more on long-term matters and planning for the team. This can be due to a fact that they have very little time left after their routine duties with the demand of operations. In such cases, some leaders may not even have time to spend with their team. A delegation will be very helpful in finding lots of time for yourself. Sometimes it can be quite challenging to explain the task to someone to do it. A leader might as well think that it can be done in minimal time if they do it by themselves. Even in such cases, the tasks should be delegated and the directions should be provided. Even though all the tasks take less time when the leader does it by themselves, it is always advisable to delegate the task to the team members.

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A leader should be capable of handing over the tasks to the team members and help them out whenever it is necessary. This will not only save some time for the leaders but it will also be a learning curve for the team members. A true leadership is all about creating new leaders in the team. By delegating tasks to the team members, a future leader will be formed in the team. Delegation helps in increasing the experience of the team members and it saves you lots of time to focus on other priorities. When a task is delegated there can also be perfection issues. A leader should be adjustable in early stages and mentor the team to do the task with perfection.

Choosing the right delegate

All the staff members in the team may not be suitable for every single task. It is the duty of a leader to monitor every member of the team. Understanding the capabilities of a particular staff member in the team is very important in the process of leadership. This will be helpful to assign right task to the team members. Leaders can look for effective opportunities and when there is a requirement, they can easily pull someone inside. A leader should be very clear and concrete while choosing the right delegate for a task. If the pick goes wrong, the task might become an additional burden on the leader itself. It is also a responsibility of team members to exhibit their capabilities to the leader. Without expressing, it can be quite challenging for a leader to understand the capabilities of a team member.

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In order to become a good delegate, the team members should also develop some skills. A team member's interest towards taking up new roles can be an added advantage for their growth. In a way being a delegate is a good opportunity for reaching the next step in the job. A person open to take up new responsibilities will have a good advantage over a person who just does what is assigned to them. In a way, inquisitive nature helps in creating good leaders. In some cases, a good delegate will have an opportunity to become a future leader. A delegate will already learn all the skills by being a delegate to the leader and manager. When the skills are enhanced they will have good opportunity to lead a new team.

Retaining Tasks

A leader will not be able to delegate all the tasks to the team members. There will be some set of tasks that can be confidential or related to the performance of the team members. It may not be appropriate to delegate some of those tasks to the team members. The control over the financial matters and strategical matters will always remain with the leaders. Some tasks that a leader will have to retain will be:

• Controlling overall performance
• Meeting strategic objectives
• Confidential HR matters

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The confidential Human resource matters cannot be delegated to anyone else in the team unless there are sub-teams inside the department. These confidential HR matters will include appraisals, promotions, sensitive information, disciplinary matters, coaching, and counseling. If there is training that only a leader will be able to take for the team, there is no possibility to delegate such tasks to someone in the team. If your team is dealing with customers or clients, a leader may not be able to delegate tasks of certain clients to the team members. A leader should be able to make wise decisions in matters that can endanger the relationship with a particular customer or client.

Hope you had an interesting read. Share your views on this topic in the comments section. Meet you again in another article.

My previous articles in this series:

Effective Leadership #1 - An Introduction
Effective Leadership #2 - Focusing on Quality
Effective Leadership #3 - Learning From Others
Effective Leadership #4 - Gaining Experience
Effective Leadership #5 - Comparing Leaders and Managers
Effective Leadership #6 - Developing Strengths in General
Effective Leadership #7 - Building Personal Strengths
Effective Leadership #8 - Mastering Roles
Effective Leadership #9 - Evaluating Key Leadership Roles
Effective Leadership #10 - Preparing to Lead
Effective Leadership #11 - Staff member recruitment
Effective Leadership #12 - Forming the team
Effective Leadership #13 - Exercising Authority