You’re snowed under with work and you tell yourself you can’t cope with it all. So why don’t you delegate? Delegating is a basic managerial skill from which everyone benefits – managers, their subordinates and the whole company. Despite this it remains one of the least used skills. Managers often argue that they are too busy to delegate and prefer to do everything themselves. But that soon proves to be a naïve view which can also have an effect on your health. So what should you do?
Look out for warning signals
To begin with you might not even notice that you are overwhelmed with work. Therefore you should look around and see whether you are working too many hours and whether you feel tired while all your subordinates are fit and healthy and are not staying behind to work overtime.
Find out why you don’t delegate
Do you thank that you do everything better than other people? Are you afraid of losing your authority? Do you have low self-confidence? Whatever your reason is, find it so that you can work with it.
Look for ways to improve
Make a record of how you spend your time during the working day. After just a few days you will begin to see a certain pattern of behaviour and will find that you devote too much time to activities which you could be delegating.
Choose people carefully
You have already probably in the past chosen the wrong people to delegate to which may have put you off. But don’t give up, look for people who have the necessary knowledge and motivation for the task that you are entrusting them with. In an ideal case delegate a certain part of your activities to each member of your team.
Incorporate delegating into your working process
Delegating should not just be another item on your long list of tasks. Make it part of your process of creating development plans for your team members. Discuss what tasks to delegate so that they can acquire the skills they need.
It will also help you if you ask your subordinates to immediately let you know when you are not delegating something which, in their opinion, should be delegated. Make it clear that if they see a project that they would like to contribute to, they should speak up. Once you delegate, follow the progress made by your people from a distance and don’t dictate to them what they should be doing. Monitor the results and learn from your mistakes. Be patient and you will see that you won’t regret it.
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