131: The Benefits of ‘Effective Delegation’

At a recent ‘Effective Delegation’ public workshop, participants from a wide range of different organisations, businesses and government departments discussed the benefits of delegating effectively.  The input from their groupwork was consolidated and their ‘Benefits of Effective Delegation’ include: 

1. Keeping the vision on track. 
2. The team taking ownership of the ‘big picture’.
3. Enhancing communication skills and opening up channels of communication.
4. The whole business or organisation becoming smoother running.
5. Service levels improving.
6. Freeing up those in senior positions to work on the vision rather than in the vision. This gives them an opportunity to focus on other important functions.
7. Seniors becoming more and more confident in their ability to delegate thus delegating more easily.
8. Time management improving.  This allows the delegator to focus on more important issues. It also increases the chances of objectives being achieved timeously.
9. The responsibility for tasks being clearly located.  Accountability resides with the person delegating.
10. Helping the delegator become more effective in evaluating his or her team.
11. Creating a team partnership in achieving results.  Thus team work is improved.  Team-building and relationships are encouraged and strengthened.
12. Empowering others through the clear scope of work.  They can perform additional tasks.  Confidence levels rise.
13. Enhancing the quality of the work/life environment.  People feel ‘warm and comfortable’ in the organisation and this impacts on other areas of their lives.
14. Creating a basis for fair assessment for the people you are delegating to. This is based on their ability to achieve tasks. 
15. Understanding the capacity of staff leading to suitable interventions for improvement being identified.
16. Creating a learning community – learning through doing.
17. Providing opportunities for people to be meaningfully involved, allowing people to take responsibility for some tasks.  This leads to business and personal development. 
18. Using human resources better as the level of work being done is at the appropriate level for them.
19. Recognising innovation in individuals.
20. Helping with providing feedback in task performance. 

These are twenty of the multitude of cascading benefits resulting from ongoing effective delegation. So what holds us back?  Why don’t we always delegate where the conditions are conducive to success?  Sometimes, the experience of past failures holds us back.  It is quicker and easier to attend to the task or project ourselves.  In addition, we often don’t understand other people’s ways of operating and this creates uncertainty and mistrust in their ability to handle the task or project as intended.  

But possibly the challenge lies not in their ability to follow through, but in our skill as delegators?  And this skill can be learnt. Our simple ‘Ten Steps to Effective Delegation’ when understood and practised regularly has brought excellent ongoing results in many organisations. You might like to have a look at our previous article, ‘Ten Steps to Effective Delegation’. 

For more information on these workshops, tailored to suit your needs, or other training programmes, please visit www.strategy-leadership.com or contact Brenda on brenda@146.66.90.172 or +27 82 4993311.  Thank you!