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.
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