Delegation is an essential skill, Master it and prosper Delegation, Leadership Qualities
Delegation is an essential skill for leadership. One can’t take on more responsibility unless you are willing to delegate it to others. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Delegating “what to do” makes you responsible, whereas Delegating “what to accomplish” allows your employees to become responsible.
Effective leaders understand a delegation is a tool for developing their teams, strengthening relationships, transferring responsibility to others who are closer to work being done and allowing those closest to the problems to take ownership of solving problems.
There are two types of delegation you must be aware of. Firstly, a low-impact delegation that is about directing people instead of leading them, and it doesn’t promote growth, responsibility, or ownership. Whereas, high-impact delegation empowers individuals and teams to thrive. It’s about growth and development, not authority.
Here are the five levels of delegation. Master it, and prosper your delegation, you will be far more effective.
Related: 7 Things You Must Know About Shared Leadership To Run Your Modern Business
Level 1 Delegation: Assess and Report:
The most inexperienced employees, the first place to begin delegation, is at Level 1. If an employee shines and moves to a higher level right away, it’s great. But if not, the employee is in the right place to acquire new skills and gradually develop confidence. When delegating a task at Level 1, you should keep the following in mind:
- Set clear expectations with your employees.
- Clearly explain the task.
- Define your employee’s role as well as your own, and
- Discuss check-in points and deadlines.
Once the reports have been submitted, review them, and then decide on further steps. Explain your thoughts to employees as that will be an investment towards developing them to the next decision-making levels.
Level 2 Delegation: Recommend:
Once employees successfully prove their skills at Level 1 delegation, promote them up to the Level 2–making recommendations. While being still responsible for Level 1 work, they are expected to develop possible solutions, recommend, and justify the best one. Review potential solutions, examine the quality of the recommendations and then choose how to implement those. Similar to Level 1, you should let employees know what you decided and how you came to those decisions.
Level 3 Delegation: Develop an Action Plan:
Remember, the levels of delegation are always growing. When the employees reach Level 3, they have already mastered the skills required in Levels 1 & 2. Level 3 delegation includes the usual recommendations made in Level 2 while adding the development of a particular action plan to achieve the recommended solution.
Level 4 Delegation: Make The Decision:
At Level 4, pass on the responsibility of decision making to the employee. Before promoting the employees up to Level 4, you need to be entirely convinced with their results at Level 3. If employees advance to this level too soon but are not fully up to speed, you may have to micromanage their work, which ruins your excellent work in the delegation. When delegating at this level:
- You trust them to make the decisions, but make sure the employees understand that they are still responsible for Level 3 work.
- Make sure they understand that you are available to coach and support them, but you encourage them to act independently.
- Monitor their progress on a regular basis by reviewing the status of the projects, and warning employees when you sense problems, and
- Reward great results.
Level 5 Delegation: Full Delegation:
All the above levels combined complete the full delegation process. It’s time to shift the task over to your employees thoroughly. Before you delegate at Level 5, make sure the employee’s decision-making must be consistent. Once you are ready to delegate at this level completely:
- Make sure your employees understand that you trust them to act, decide, and follow-through.
- Ask them to reach back to you with exceptions and unusual problems, but otherwise, it’s their task, and they are fully responsible for its successful completion, and
- Reward exceptional results, including a promotion to employees who reach Level 5 with various tasks.
GoFounders has the best leaders to lead the ONPASSIVE platform that will assist you with your delegation. The leadership qualities that develop great leaders are already there in you. Just select the right guidance from the founders at GoFounders and the right tools to guide you and your team to top of the mountain of success.
