Delegating is a skill that all business owners need to master. If you’ve grown your business to a place where it’s no longer feasible to be involved in every decision or task, you need to own your leadership role — and that means overseeing and guiding a team. Delegating is all about accountability and has unique challenges.
So how can you delegate effectively, without losing control? Let’s take a look.
What is delegating?
Delegating is a simple concept: you divide a project or tasks among others to complete. Pretty simple. But the devil is in the details. Delegating successfully depends on how well you provide oversight and how effectively you assign jobs.
Delegating can give you a competent team and staff, growth opportunities, and a reputation for quality. When you don’t delegate — or don’t do it well — then you have a problem:
- Bad return: Your pay is (probably) much higher than that of your employees. If you are doing work that they were hired to do, you are being incredibly inefficient on a cost-to-work ratio.
- Micromanaging: Second-guessing and redoing the work of your staff breeds resentment and stifles growth. You hired your employees for a reason; micromanaging wastes their potential and opportunity to shine as an asset for the business.
- Extra work: Piling your plate with tasks that could be otherwise done by someone else means no one is looking after the big picture of your business. Opportunities disappear and your business stagnates because you’re not paying attention.
Delegating involves dividing labour across departments and assigning tasks to people who can get the job done, leading to shared success. This is what good managers do, and what you, as an employer, need to be good at.
How to delegate
To delegate, the first thing to do is change your mindset: less responsibility, more accountability. This is often the biggest challenge, partly because you are where you are due to your abilities. You probably even think, “How can the work get done properly if I’m not the one doing it?”
Delegating isn’t about absolving yourself of responsibility. By delegating, your team are responsible for the tasks, and you are accountable for their outcomes. It takes courage to distance yourself, but that’s part of the process.
Break down your project
You can start delegating by breaking down projects and prioritising them. First, review what needs to be done: problem, impact, solution, and outcomes. Next, identify tasks that are high-level and can’t be done without you. The rest is the responsibility of your team.
Breaking down the project is a crucial first step, because you need to either assign tasks to the best person for the job or provide growth opportunities to staff who will benefit long-term. These don’t need to be mutually exclusive. It also helps you focus on the big picture of your business by developing your employees and growing their capacity to contribute and work independently.
Present and handoff
Once you have your project/s broken down and allocated accordingly, it’s time to present them to your team. Start with an open forum meeting to present and hand off the project, where you:
- Outline the project: What it is, why this project is important, and the desired outcome.
- State roles and responsibilities: Who is responsible for what, how much time should be allocated, and individual expectations.
- Identify challenges: Name the roadblocks and barriers involved in the project.
- Discuss: Have an open conversation with your staff about the overall project.
After you have completed the hand-off, state your own responsibilities for the project: oversight, guidance, and management.
Manage expectations
After you’ve delegated the project to the team, the hard work begins – not just for your staff, but for yourself. At this point, you might feel the pressure of not contributing to the day-to-day and activity-based tasks. This is where you need to manage your own expectations, as well as your staff.
As a leader, you oversee the work done. But instead of telling your team how to do it, guide them in the process. Conduct regular team meetings to track group progress and individual check-ins to address challenges your staff may face.
In your check-ins with staff, your responsibility is to help your team prioritise and get them to find the best approach to complete their tasks:
- Prioritise: Restate the purpose of the project, outline the objectives, and explain why they matter. This will help them prioritise.
- Support: Build up their confidence and reassure them they’ve got this. Help them do this by providing examples of how to do the work, as a sounding board; this way, they can come to their own conclusions.
- Hand back: After your staff have come to their own conclusions on how to tackle the task best, hand it back to them. Let them know that you’re available if they need any more help.
Review, feedback, and celebrate success
When you have completed a project, you need to celebrate the wins and review what you could have done better. Give confidence in your team by acknowledging their efforts. Over time, they will appreciate their development, autonomy, and success through your guidance.
A good way to help your team appreciate the process is to give them more responsibility when speaking with clients and stakeholders. Remember that your role is to look at the high-level tasks, while your team knows the details. Bring them in, have them run meetings with your clients, and answer any questions. This is where you explain to your clients that your team is responsible for the details and that you are accountable for the outcomes. This makes your staff aware that it’s not all on them, but that you are all responsible as a team.
Delegating Example
Scenario:
Susan owns a small business that deals with bespoke furniture. She is passionate about her business, but has struggled to juggle everything: customers, inventory, social media, and accounting. Despite her exhaustion, her business has room to grow.
Delegation:
Susan decides to offload her inventory, supplier, and customer order communication to her assistant, Greg. After working closely with him, Susan is confident that Greg can handle these parts of the business.
Outcome:
Greg’s skills in organisation, attention to detail, and problem-solving flourished with his new responsibilities. By taking over this role, he helped get customer orders in, get designs approved, and deliver the end product quickly. Customer satisfaction grew, giving Susan the freedom to design her custom website to increase sales.
Impact:
Susan can now focus on making her business more profitable instead of getting stuck in the weeds of daily tasks. She also has an asset in her employee, Greg, who is becoming more capable of handling the business without her.
Delegating and your business
By not doing everything yourself, you allow your employees to flourish and develop into assets for your business. So resist the temptation to fall into old habits and instead trust your staff to succeed. By delegating, you not only free yourself up to grow your business, but also develop your own capabilities as a business owner or spend time outside of work. Having the confidence that your employees have your back opens up endless possibilities for you. Delegate, and your business can only be better.
