Effective Leadership #15 - Process of Delegation

bala41288 (70)in #steemiteducation • 6 years ago

Hello Steemians! Welcome to yet another article in Effective leadership series. In our previous article, we saw the importance of delegation and how a leader should be open to delegate tasks to the team members. We also understood about choosing the right delegate being a leader. In this article, I will take you through the process of delegation. Let's assume we have already found a delegate for assigning tasks. Now the process of the delegation will start from briefing the task to the delegate, supervising, supporting, checking quality, enhancing their skills etc. Though the task is assigned to someone, it is completely the responsibility of the leader to get a quality output from the task. There should not be a compromise in quality just because the task was done by someone else.

Image Source - CC0 Licence

Briefing Delegates

This is a very important step in the process of delegation. Briefing delegates ensure that both leader and delegate are on the same page. Before starting the task it is highly essential that the delegate should be completely aware of what they have to be doing. Leaders can have multiple sessions to explain the task to the delegate. While doing the briefing session be very clear to your delegate on the following points:

Objectives
Resources
Constraints
Time Schedule

Image Source - CC0 Licence

It will be more appropriate if you can give your delegate a written brief instead of having everything in verbal conversation. This written brief can be helpful in being a proof of reference in the future. While providing the written brief to your delegate, have a meeting them to discuss all the points that you have mentioned in the brief. If you come across any changes to the brief during your meeting, make the changes before you give the brief to your delegate. It is not mandatory to stick to what you have written. You can be a bit flexible about it based on the circumstances. Delegates are also free to seek clarifications on unclear points in the brief that was provided.

Supervising Effectively

Delegates should be provided full freedom to implement solutions in their own ways. The only thing that will be required is the communication. Before taking an approach, it will be ideal to keep the leader informed about the plan. If a leader is continuously trying to interact with the delegate to do a micromanagement and get an update on each and everything, it can be considered as a bad sign for leadership. The learning of the delegate is affected if they are continuously poked. Sometimes they even get irritated and their irritation will be evident in the output of their work.

Image Source - CC0 Licence

Monitoring the activity is very important. A leader can check the reports and have face to face meetings with the delegate to check the progress. These update gathering process should not happen very frequently. In most of the cases, a silent observation with the help of reports itself will be highly sufficient.

Reinforcing a delegate's role

It is the responsibility of a leader to showcase the work of a delegate. A leader should introduce the delegate to the team members for them to interact with the delegate and get used to the team's working structure. This will also make the delegate feel to be a part of the team. If there are client or customer dependencies on the new delegate, a leader should brief the customers and clients about the responsibilities that this new delegate will be taking up. Reinforcing a delegate in front of the team members will also make the existing team members understand the roles and responsibilities the new delegate will be taking up.

Providing Support

While providing help to the delegate, a leader should follow open-door policy. You might wonder what an open-door project means. If any support is required for the delegate, the doors should be open always for a delegate to approach their leader and question. There should not be any hesitation to approach leader to get things clarified. If a delegate is approaching a leader multiple times to get things clarified, it is just two things - either the delegation is not going well or the task was not delegated very well. Sometimes even for confirmations, the delegates might reach out to the leaders multiple times. In such cases, it is the responsibility of the leader to boost up delegate's confidence.

Image Source - CC0 Licence

Checking progress with delegates

You can check progress with the delegates quite often. Speaking positive words with the delegates can be really helpful in motivating the delegates to do their work effectively. Using positive words can be a nice way of asking progress and giving suggestions to the delegates. In some tricky areas, a leader can even ask for suggestions from the delegate itself.

Image Source - CC0 Licence

Developing delegates

Delegates have lots of area for improvement and excellent working under the guidance of an effective leader. A delegate can always be in the search of signs and development areas. As a leader, you should be able to check and make sure that the delegates are not taking away all the opportunities present in the team. Among the crowd of people, if you want to be successful, you have to just stand alone and stay unique. The delegate should always be ready to take up any challenge and should also be comfortable when held accountable. Working under an effective leader, there should not be an opportunity for excuses.