Delegation, if executed correctly, is one of the most important leadership traits. I have come across senior managers who delegate too much and are hands-off and others who micromanage everything that goes on in their group.
Lack of delegation may result from:
- Lack of confidence in staff: Typical concern here is that their teams aren’t capable of handling the responsibility hence leaders find the need to solve the problem themselves.
- What I suggest here is that leaders need to hire people who can be leaders of tomorrow. Look for passion and potential so you can train the folks you hire to become leaders.
- Another point is how do managers expect to gain confidence in their staff if the manager do not put the effort in training their teams and delegating responsibilities and creating a safe environment for the team to fail.
- I believe that it’s part of the manager’s job to train folks in the team to take leadership responsibilities down the road. Training for leadership responsibilities can only be done via good delegation. Good delegation is when you monitor and guide the person to whom you have delegated the work so they can succeed in the tasks.
- Getting things done my way: Leader’s job is to ensure requirements are met and standards followed but not dictate the implementation. Most problems have several correct solutions. And usually, fast execution is more important than getting a perfect solution. Over the years I have learned that it is best to have the team decide specifics of the path (under leader’s overall guidance) so that the team owns its decisions rather than the manager forcing a path which the team may not wholeheartedly believe in.
- Fear of over burdening staff: Igniting passion in the team for more knowledge, learning and responsibility is part of a leader’s responsibility. Hence, a leader must carve time out for their team members so they can learn and grow.
- Fear of losing one’s job by delegating responsibilities: Unfortunately, I have come across leaders who just don’t delegate even though they have a capable team. For organizations it is critical to discourage this behavior and it is equally important for team members to ask for increased responsibility.
Actions that I have taken which have enabled me to delegate well:
- When hiring look for a mixed set of skills including communication, passion for learning and potential for becoming leaders.
- Have a clear set of requirements and standards when delegating so as to avoid ambiguity. I am thankful to a senior leader at Citadel LLC who took a risk in delegating a major responsibility to me when I was still quite junior. However, he was meticulous in detail so as to prevent any chance of ambiguity; this helped me execute the job efficiently without straying from the correct path.
- Leaders have to connect with their teams so they understand what their interests are and hence delegate tasks appropriately.
- Coach your team so it can succeed when tasks are delegated to it. This means that leaders may need to spend time coworking on the task initially so the team member doing the task understands the proper approach to solving the problem. This is not micromanaging but providing coaching.
- Delegate to create career opportunity for team members. High profile projects should be delegated to team members so they can become better known in the company. This is essential for providing promotions in your teams.
- Use delegation as means of building trust within the team. As you effectively delegate and your team members do well on the tasks delegated to them, it builds an environment of trust which creates solid teams. Your team members will be ready to do a lot for the team under pressure when trust exists.
- Use delegation as an organizational value so senior developers can follow the same path and create opportunities for junior developers. I have coached senior team members to work together with junior members to design API (application programming interface) at a high level while junior team members implement the code. This creates an excellent learning opportunity for junior team members.
- Delegate larger projects to senior team members: As team members grow to take increased responsibility, it is best to delegate entire projects to the team members. This opens up opportunity for your team members to take load off your queue so you can take on increased responsibilities.
- Endeavor to create a safe environment for the team where failure is ok. We learn best from failure and if failure is considered an anathema (i.e., if a team member fails a task, a drastic action is taken against them), this creates a culture where folks fear taking on increased responsibility and risk. Certainly, there are tasks where price of failure is extremely high; however, those tasks should be appropriately staffed.
- Focus on results and not as much on how the work gets done. Let your team make decisions on the implementation.
- Create a framework where accountability on delegated work is checked. Scrums are a great place to quickly take a snapshot of delegated work. In addition, on larger projects its important to set up check points with the people running the project to ensure decisions are sound and targets are being met.
- Don’t delegate tasks which are your responsibility: Hiring, firing, career coaching, employee evaluations, strategic planning should not be delegated if these fall under your domain.
References:
https://hbr.org/2017/10/to-be-a-great-leader-you-have-to-learn-how-to-delegate-well
https://hbr.org/2019/08/8-ways-leaders-delegate-successfully
https://hbr.org/2020/11/youre-delegating-its-not-working-heres-why
https://hbr.org/2012/07/why-arent-you-delegating
https://hbr.org/2017/07/how-to-decide-which-tasks-to-delegate
HBR Essentials – Manager’s toolkit: This book has an excellent chapter on delegation.