Leadership is an ability to guide or inspire. It may involve guiding a person, a group of employees or at times the entire organisation. To do so, a leader must imbibe necessary qualities in order to lead efficiently and help the team members complete their tasks on time and in the best way possible. Honesty, integrity, commitment, effective communication, decision making ability, accountability, creativity and delegation are often listed as the pivotal leadership qualities. At times, leaders feel the need of doing all the work themselves in order to complete all of it in the right way. This is certainly not an optimum choice of doing things. Leaders need to delegate tasks depending upon the amount of work to be done and capability of the employees of the organisation.
Assignment of responsibilities by a manager to an employee is called delegation. It is one of the core qualities that a leader must possess. In the long run, delegation of work benefits not just business leaders and entrepreneurs, but their employees as well. By entrusting certain tasks to employees, leaders tend to build confidence in them. This helps in enhancing employee performance which eventually aids towards achieving the organisations’ goals.
Delegation of work is done simply because one individual cannot do everything. Trying to complete all tasks by oneself may lead to inferior quality of work, difficulty in managing time effectively, missing deadlines etc. On reaching the saturation point, human beings fail to achieve the desired and necessary goals. This often leads to burnout. In order to avoid such problems, corporate giants have various departments created so as to delegate and distribute the huge amount of work and also to ensure that the right person does the right work. Hence, scientifically and professionally it is very important to delegate activities among employees.
Delegation is a sign of leadership and not weakness. Delegating tasks to relevant people is a skill in itself. That is why, effective delegation will always help leaders accomplish their goals. It will help them save time to focus on other important aspects like strategic planning of future projects and developmental opportunities. By delegating tasks and deciding upon realistic deadlines for them will boost self-esteem of the employees and will also make them believe that their leader is having trust on them. This will give a chance to leaders for improving professional relations with employees; also giving them satisfaction by seeing their employees doing better at work. On the other hand, as soon as employees receive their part of tasks to be done, they will carry them forward even in the absence of their leaders. This will help leaders in having a work-life balance.
Delegation is advantageous for not just managers but also has a positive impact on employees. When leaders delegate tasks to employees, they find ways to complete it. In this process they grow and improve their working speed, efficiency and results. This motivates them to work more and more, in the best way possible. They get a good chance to brush up their skills and also to contribute to the success of their team. Delegation, along with providing benefits to leaders and employees, also works for the welfare of the organisation. It provides the organisation with skilled employees, ready to face tough situations and take up complicated tasks with improved confidence and willpower. This notable improvement in employees in turn magnifies productivity within organisations, and increases feasibility to reach greater heights.
There are various ways through which leaders can delegate tasks to team members. It is crucial for leaders to learn how and whom to delegate tasks. Not delegating enough tasks or delegating them to less competent people may invite trouble within an organisation. To avoid such hassles, leaders need to learn effective management skills. Knowing how to delegate is as important as knowing what to delegate and whom to delegate. Leaders need to delegate tasks depending upon the abilities of the person. The requirements of the leader and capabilities of an employee should match; only then the process of delegation will be successful. According to independent researchers, experienced leaders always delegate smaller tasks to newer staff to build their confidence and competence. While delegating work to newer employees, leaders must be very clear on explaining to them what is to be done, how they think it should be done and making them clear on the deadlines.
In the whole process of delegation, the old school saying, “If you want the job done right, you have to do it yourself” is not applicable. This is because a leader cannot focus on every minute detail of an entire organisation. According to Brian Tracy, a Canadian-American motivational public speaker and self-development author, “If you want the job done right, you have to learn how to delegate it properly so that it can be done to the proper standard.”
Delegation- A Vital Facet That Every Leader Should Possess to Reach Greater Heights
