Often we think we’ve delegated a task only to discover, too late, that the work hasn’t been done, has been done wrong or done to an unacceptable standard. So you step in to re-do, fix or undo the work because your client or your boss will hold you accountable for the poor delivery.

It’s enough to give you restless, sleepless nights and cause you stress or heartburn as you juggle which priority work you’ll have to put off, again.

We all know we need to delegate. Some of us find that hard to do. And of those of us that do delegate, only a small percentage do it well.

We’re agreed, I hope, that delegating isn’t “Ellen, can you pick up the supplier acquisition process and report back to the team when it’s done?” (That’s an instruction disguised as a question!)

Delegating involves handing over ownership as well as information, documentation, stakeholder contacts, deliverables and timelines. While 5-30 mins may be sufficient to delegate simpler tasks, you might need 90-120 mins for complicated ones, either in one sitting or over 2-3 meetings.

How delegated tasks get derailed

From their side…

• They don’t understand the opportunity. Why is this task important? How does it fit in the big picture? Is it strategic or tactical? How high-profile is it? What’s at stake?
• Aside from reasons that it’s in their job description, why have you asked them, in particular, to do it? Are they best placed in terms of skill and experience? Is this a good stretch towards growing them in their role or for future roles? Is it an opportunity to demonstrate their ability or skill?
• They don’t know how to do it or don’t feel they have the freedom to determine better ways of doing it or to go about it using their own process. They could be feeling stuck at this hurdle; if there is a legitimate (legal or accountability) reason for doing it a certain way, it’s possible they haven’t understood this.
• They are genuinely overloaded and do not have the time and headspace to re-prioritise all their tasks or negotiate through competing priorities.
• They don’t like you. There is tension between you. (We’ll unpack this another time!)

The Challenges of Leadership & Why Leaders Who Coach™ Handle Them Better covers not letting go / difficulty delegating, telling people what to do and jumping to solutions, not knowing what your people are capable of, and more relating to delegating.

From your side:

• You’ve half-delegated (I’m being nice… what I mean is you delegated badly)
• You’ve been too prescriptive where you could let them determine and perhaps improve the existing process. Or you haven’t explained the legal or accountability ramifications of not following the due process or using the tools/system that is in place.
• You haven’t checked in and mentored/coached adequately. Or maybe you check in too much (which says you don’t trust them) or not enough (so you’re not able to course-correct or provide advice).
• You haven’t clarified their level of authority. Or you haven’t given them the authority to undertake all parts of the task. For example, are they expected to analyse the data and make a recommendation to you but not make the final decision?
• You haven’t explained why quality is important and where it is especially important in the process or outcome.
• You haven’t flagged where the likely sticking points and bottlenecks are and what they need to do when they happen, or generally what are their options when they hits any hurdles. Should they attempt to resolve things themselves? And when should they come to you for support and what do they need to prepare for that discussion?
• You’ve assumed too much. Maybe the task is more complicated with more dependencies, touch-points or regulations than when you did it last
  maybe you’ve assumed that because they’ve done something similar, done part of the task in the past or were in the same team last time when it was done, that they know how to do it.
• It’s also possible that you’ve over-estimated their abilities and have been swayed by your own biases or needs. It happens a lot more than we care to admit.

A lot can go wrong or just not happen!

Delegate so you can sleep, peacefully.

Here are my 5 key considerations for helping you delegate better.

1. How much freedom and authority do they have?

Do they have the freedom to determine how they complete the task? Are there non-negotiable procedures or steps they needs to take, and are they aware of why? Do they have the right to make the final decision? If not, have you made clear when and why you need to approve the decision? What part of the final decision-making, if any, will they have?

Have you given them full authority to make decisions from start to finish? And in doing so, have you introduced them to all involved stakeholders as having such authority? How will you support them and what red tape must you cut in doing so?

2. If it’s a stretch, how will you support them?

Is the task something they are well-matched to do? And if the task is a stretch while offering an opportunity for them to grow, are you planning to fully support them with check-ins and coaching to achieve it successfully? Have you allocated time for this?

Have you provided them with all the information, contacts, resources, tools, historical background and authority that they need? If they’ve got a heavy workload already, have you taken some work off their load (or redistributed their workload or adjusted timelines) to make room for this higher priority task?

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3. Who do you need to be so that they can succeed?

Are you being patient enough in delegating? Or are you being too patient and why? Being too patient may be a sign that you feel responsible for how things are going in some way. Maybe you didn’t emphasise the consequences enough. Maybe you’re feeling a bit territorial about it.

Recognise your response, name it and then re-focus on the task, project, team or client. Sometimes recognising your own response is all you need to do to get past it. The signal to listen to is that you sense that things could go horribly wrong — the risk. The signal to push aside is that you, for some reason, feel uncomfortable or insecure about something — the distraction.

Don’t wait. Listen to the risk signal. It’s time to course-correct.

No need to be heavy-handed or go in with “I’m worried about the status, what have you been up to? Let me tell you how I do it…” Remember, you are a resource to them.

Sit down again, ask how things are going, what is their plan, what challenges are they coming up against, where are they stuck, what’s their plan for getting unstuck, and how can you help remove some obstacles. Obstacles can include gossip and back-channel conversations that are undermining their efforts, not having access to the right people, up-the-pipe or down-the-pipe bottlenecks, or some technical details.

Run the check-in in that order. And at the end always ask, “Was that helpful? What could I/you/we do differently next time?” (You’re modelling, remember.)

4. Be crystal clear about the consequences for them and for you

Are you being mindful of the greater impact on the team by delegating this task? Is your intention to hand over this task permanently and why? Have you explained the consequences of doing the task well? Have you explained the consequences of doing the task badly? What are you prepared to do if things go well? What will you need to do if things go badly?

Everything has consequences. Not only do you have a responsibility to the business but you also have a responsibility to all your people to safeguard the best work environment and culture that you can. This includes not tolerating underperformance because it causes pain for the rest of the team.

Does delegating this task provide you more time to consider other more strategic activities affecting the team or the business? Are you actually doing this or letting that time get eaten up inefficiently — there’s accountability on you too?

5. How you delegate *does* shape your organisation’s culture

In delegating this task, how is the rest of your team affected? Is your approach to delegating aligned to the behaviours and values of your organisation? What is your team reading from the way you delegate? Are you demonstrating that you care about the success of your people? How do your delegation skills show up more widely in your organisation’s culture?

How would you like someone to delegate this task to you? If you were delegating to your boss, would you be more diligent and take more time?

If you rush the delegation process or half-delegate, you could be showing that you don’t really care or that person isn’t important enough to do a proper handover with or that the quality of the work is unimportant, or the task itself is not important. Worse still, people come to distrust you because they feel you set others up to fail.

Don’t forget…

If the person you’ve delegated to keeps interrupting you with questions, it’s possible that there is a gap of skill or information or clarity or confidence. Notice the pattern and schedule time to review. Re-evaluate your own assumptions, adjust your monitoring and checking-in frequency, or break the task down into simpler steps or phases.

Maybe it requires more than one person to complete it. Spread the work across more people or break it down into smaller phases.

If the stretch for that person is too big, consider someone else taking the lead and have your original person remain involved owning specific pieces of the task

Depending on the task, some additional training may be necessary.

Only after you’ve exhausted all ways of delegating and aligning, you may need to re-assign the task to someone else if you feel that the skills gap is still too big. Don’t forget you are the person who chose the person to delegate to so, in the spirit of “mistakes happen” even by you, handle the transition with compassion, secure their alignment and understanding, and for sure don’t play the blame game. 

Delegating tasks is one of the toughest aspects of managing a team. Consider up-skilling by enrolling in Leaders Who Coach™.