Why learning how to delegate can make you a better manager

Managing people isn’t easy, but learning how to properly delegate tasks and play to your employees’ strengths can go a long way towards improving business productivity.

In this edited extract from Be A Better Manager in 5 Minutes a Day, author Dr Dominic Mcloughlin explains how not to delegate when you’re the one in control, and offers a simple exercise to improve your skills in this area.

Example: How not to delegate

Jessica was happy co-ordinating the delivery of some health services for a local region and she was widely acknowledged as doing an excellent job. Her manager moved to another city, leaving the website administration role vacant. The local management team asked Jess if she would be happy to take on the website administration role while they recruited a new manager, and Jess agreed. Interviews were conducted, but three months passed and nothing happened. Jessica approached the management team to ask what was happening, as she was doing two jobs and wanted a resolution.

The response she received was: “Oh — we thought you would keep doing it.” Jess pointed out that she had agreed to do it for a short time temporarily and asked about the interview candidates. This resulted in someone finally being appointed to fill the role, but within weeks, that replacement was seconded to another area.

Finally, after 12 months of having too much to do, Jess was burnt out and approached the management team again. Amazingly the response was the same as before: “We thought you could keep doing it.” Jessica resigned from the web administration role, effective immediately.

What went wrong here, in terms of what we’ve been discussing? There are a number of the DO’s that were absent. No one in the management team discussed Jess’ career aspirations. They could have found out early on that she had no wish to be promoted permanently. There was no attempt to explain what the outcome was. If the goal had been a handover in 3 months’ time, Jess would have known what to expect, and the recruitment would have been taken much more seriously.

Regular progress reports would have shown that Jess was feeling overwhelmed, enabling additional support to be provided. Similarly, if someone had been allocated to support Jessica, they would have realised how much work was really involved and enabled the management team to understand that she would not continue doing two roles indefinitely. Some positive feedback on what a great job Jess was doing, along with appointing someone to assist her, could have encouraged her to decide to take the promotion. Part of the problem was that the ‘management team’ all thought that someone else was looking after it. In reality, no one was. They could have designated one person as her manager which would have meant that they took the responsibility for Jess seriously and enabled clearer communication. 

There were also some DO NOT’s that should have been avoided. The task was delegated and Jess was just left to it. The management team assumed Jess knew what they were thinking and expecting. The management team did not check if there were any obstacles to Jess doing the work, or their plan for her to continue in the role. All of these could have been avoided.

In our survey, 39 the best managers delegated authority and responsibility appropriately, however, the worst managers were described as being very ‘hands off’. They delegated all the work and did not dedicate any of their time to help manage the workload (similar to the example of Jessica above). Some of the worst managers relied on control and surveillance, rather than trusting their people. They took an approach of ‘looking over shoulders’ and micromanaging, demanding that they be the ones to approve every decision. The survey participants stated that this created a harsh work environment that led to resentment and low morale. 

Micromanagement, control, and surveillance undermine trust. As we have seen, high levels of trust are built in a professional relationship where both parties trust each other. The best managers trusted their team members to work autonomously to deliver the work without micromanaging. Instead, they set the expectations, provided the necessary resources, and then allowed team members to decide on their own work processes. A clear outline of what is to be done and by when allows you to trust your team to get the task or project completed in whatever way suits them, but also holds people accountable for completing the work. This form of delegation, with support and progress reports, allows for important innovations to appear. At the same time, it allows people to make, and learn from, mistakes giving the freedom to grow and improving the performance of individuals and your whole team. 

What you decide to delegate, and to whom you delegate, are examples of decisions that are appropriate for you to make. However, research shows that participation by your team members in decisions that affect them leads to greater job satisfaction and feeling trusted. Consider how you can improve your delegation through the exercise below. 

Start your journey with just five minutes a day

Day 1: Reflect on how much you delegate. Is there more that you could be giving to your team members? 

Day 2: Choose one thing from this chapter to try today that would improve on one thing from your Day 1 reflection. 

Day 3: Reflect on the support you provide those you have delegated work to. 

Day 4: Choose one thing from this chapter to try today that would improve on one thing from your Day 3 reflection. 

Day 5: Reflect on what you have learned from trying these things. Are there any lessons to learn? What can you do next week?

This was an edited extract from Be A Better Manager in 5 Minutes a Day by Dr Dominic Mcloughlin. Dr McLoughlin is a People Management Specialist with 20 years’ experience helping thousands to be better at managing their people.