5 Important Stages to Mastering the Art of Delegation
In one of my previous leadership roles, the worst day of the month was always when expense reports were due. I dreaded expense reports for four reasons:
- I wasn’t good at them.
- They took me way too long to complete.
- I felt mentally and emotionally drained while doing them.
- I made a lot of mistakes. As soon as I turned one in, the accountant would call and tell me that I forgot to sign my name or some other minor detail.
In order to make expense reports slightly less awful, I created a list of nearly 30 steps to ensure that I did them correctly. I started getting fewer and fewer calls from the accountant. But I still did not look forward to them.
After 9 years of doing my own expense reports, I had the opportunity to hire a part-time assistant. One of the first things I wanted to hand off was expense reports. It was time to delegate!
The D-Word
How often do you feel overwhelmed by all of the tasks that you have to do? How many times do you think that there is more to do than can possibly be done?
People often think that they have do everything on their own if it’s going to be done the way that they want. But leaders learn to delegate.
The more you delegate, the more you can concentrate on your most important responsibilities.
The less you delegate, the more overwhelmed you feel. And the more time and energy you spend on less important items.
This is true for all types of leaders:
- Parents who don’t delegate well spend time and energy doing all the household chores. They can’t spend their time and energy with their children, investing in their lives.
- Small group leaders who don’t delegate well spend time and energy planning social events or organizing meal deliveries. They can’t spend their time and energy preparing a Bible study because they haven’t delegated responsibility to other group members.
- Ministry and marketplace leaders spend time and energy organizing their calendars and sorting through their emails. They can’t spend their time and energy planning and working toward the future goals of the organization because they are caught up in the details.
Every leader needs to learn the art of delegation. But it rarely happens as quickly as you would like.
Whenever you are delegating, it helps to know that there are 5 stages.
Stage 1: Pre-delegation
Most leaders don’t delegate well because they don’t do this stage well. They want to get rid of a responsibility, so they just hand it over. But the person taking the responsibility doesn’t know what the outcome should be, the purpose behind it, or how to accomplish it.
The effort you spend on this stage will determine the level of success in the later stages.
In this stage, you become clear on why you are delegating and how the responsibility should be achieved.
Why You Are Delegating
There are three good reasons to delegate something:
- Because someone else can do a better job on it than you.
- Because you need to spend time on more significant aspects of your work.
- Because you need a better work-life balance.
Becoming clear on why you are delegating is an important step that will pay dividends in stage 4.
How to Achieve the Responsibility
During this stage, you want to create a document that captures anything that is important regarding how the task needs to be done.
- Are there important outcomes?
- Are there budget constraints?
- Are there critical deadlines?
- Are there specific steps that need to be followed?
Anything that is important should be captured in order to make the task of delegation much easier.
Stage 2: Copying
During this stage, you want the person to copy you while you perform the delegated responsibility. You can show the person the document you developed in stage 1. When I handed off expense reports, I gave my assistant the
(a) monthly deadlines when the report needed to be turned in and
(b) the list of 30 steps that I had developed for myself.
During this stage, you walk him through exactly what your document captures. This gives the person a chance to watch what you do and ask questions.
Let the person copy you while you do it. You may feel as if you are treating someone like a child, but I have found that it has the opposite effect. It gives the person confidence that
- you know the answer to their questions and
- that you cared about them enough to make their job easier.
Stage 2 builds competence in the person to whom you are delegating. Both you and the person gain confidence that they know what to do and how to do it.
Stage 3: Mastery
The third stage often takes the longest. The person takes responsibility for the delegated assignment but still has a learning curve.
Even though you have given the person all the steps to follow, they might still need you to be close by. They may have a lot of questions or need you to show them how to do something again.
But over time, the person learns how to do what you delegated. He will need you less and less. He will become a master of the responsibility.
If you are handing off laundry to your child, this would be the time to stand with him in the laundry room to:
Show him how to sort the laundry. Then let him try.
Show him how to look for stains. Then let him try.
Show him the settings for each of the types of clothes. Then let him try.
Stage 4: Improving
Once the person has mastered the responsibility, he will begin to make adjustments and improvements to it. He’ll start thinking about how to do it better.
My assistant figured out how to do the expense report faster, more accurately, and with less work for both of us.
This is when delegation gets exciting. The person begins to free you up to concentrate on fulfilling the “why” you identified in Stage 1.
Stage 5: Owning
At this stage, the person has become more knowledgeable and proficient in the responsibility than you were. He is now the expert, and you have a high level of trust with him.
You want to check in to ensure that the outcomes are being accomplished. But the person may only need your help occasionally. You will be free to fully carry out your “why” from step 1.
This is also where it becomes fun for the person because he may be able to delegate some parts of his responsibility to others. This increases your productivity, their productivity, your team’s effectiveness, and shares more of the meaningful responsibility that there is to do.
Whatever leadership you have, you should continually pay attention to the responsibilities that you can delegate and find the right people to delegate to. These stages can provide you with a framework for realistic delegation.
Questions: What responsibilities can you delegate? What would you next action be?
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