Developing leaders – When should you delegate?
One of the best bits of advice I received when I first became a manager was to “delegate a task when your team member is 70% as good at it as you are, not 99%.”
Many times, people are promoted to management positions because of their strong performance as individual contributors, but then they’re shocked to learn that a whole separate set of skills is required to succeed in their new role. Delegation is high on this list of new skills.
Delegation means handing off tasks for someone else to do them. A common mistake is to only hand off a task when the team member is as good as you are at it. This is a trap! While it may seem like a good idea to protect the quality of the task, it doesn’t work in practice – here's why:
First, if you continue to perform the individual contributor tasks, you won’t have sufficient time to perform your new manager tasks (the one’s you’re being measured on) and your performance will suffer.
Second, a major part of your managerial assignment is to develop your team members. They will learn best by doing – you have to let them try. Most people will “step up” in the face of a new challenge. By delegating a task you’re great at, you challenge the team member to learn. Sure, they’ll make some mistakes the first few times, but you’ll be there to course-correct and mentor.
Importantly, by handing off some of your old responsibilities in this way, your time will be freed up to learn the new tasks and skills that will enhance your career growth.
Delegating is a skill. It requires a certain amount of trust in your team members and a certain amount of faith that they’ll be able to pick up the ball and run with it. By expanding their skills, you improve the versatility and performance of your team (and as a manger, the performance of your team is what you are being measured on) and you improve your capacity to learn and to move on to bigger and better things.
If you want your message to land, it's essential to select the correct mode of communication. What's the correct mode? It depends.
Juran realized that all defects can be classified as "operator-controllable" or “management-controllable". Management (and engineering) plays an absolutely essential in quality outcomes.
Networking and communication build and sustain the relationships that make business work. Avoid these bad habits immediately or people will dislike you immediately.
Mastering these 5 missing skills quickly maximizes your productivity and influence, which in turn enhances both job security and advancement potential.
I explained the goal in designing any component. Overly tight specifications would make it harder to find suppliers and would drive up costs. The engineer's entire approach changed.
Preparing for a presentation is vital in enabling team members to convey critical points, and influence outcomes with customers. Here are the steps involved.
When customer tensions rise, the right approach can turn friction into collaboration. At CAEDENCE, we call it the 3C’s: Calm, Clarify, Control. Here's more detail.
Will AI Replace Direct Customer Communication? Absolutely Not! In an age of chatbots and algorithms, the highest-impact discussions still happen person-to-person.
B2B customer relationships are not a breeze. We’ve navigated hundreds of challenging accounts and distilled five secrets that consistently turn friction into forward progress.
Ever notice how a quick fix from the top can feel like a shortcut, but it ends up stunting your team’s growth? When managers rush to answers, they inadvertently affect team development.
