With all of the things to do on a dairy on a given day, it is obvious that you can’t do everything on your own, and neither can your managers. Effective delegation makes for efficient completion of tasks and a more productive work environment.
We all do our best to delegate and let others complete tasks by simply giving tasks for others to complete. In reality, it’s not that simple. Too often we are forced to step in at the last minute to fix something that inevitably is about to be broken. Sabina Nawaz, a professional CEO coach, says that by you stepping in to save the day you’re not allowing your employees to learn. Not only are they not allowed to discover solutions on their own, Nawaz says that morale can be damaged as employees begin to believe that whatever they do, their work isn’t good enough.
Nawaz, through her experience coaching executives at Fortune 500 companies, has developed a “delegation dial” to help evaluate employee skills and guide tasks. The setup involves two steps. First assess how much your employee already knows about a given task or project. The second step involves delegation based on your employee’s competence level. The dial can be applied as follows based on your employee’s level of expertise:
Nawaz says that while the allure of delegation is tempting, the tasks you delegate don’t always come out finished and perfect. Assess the stage of learning your employee is in and split the responsibility load. She says that while it may take more time at the start, the results will be better in the long term.