There are two questions that often come to mind – (1) Can I do it all (2) Can I do it all so well? The day we start feeling burdened and loaded, we know what we are looking for. Delegation is about effectively passing on tasks to the right people with the right guidance to ensure better results. Alone we can do so little, together we can achieve so much.
Delegation, whether at home or at work, is an art that needs to be mastered. I have come across so many people who just cannot delegate work to someone. I did some soul searching and realised that there are some key reasons for this:
- lack of trust
- extreme self-reliance
- fear of outcome
- lack of confidence in others
- time-consumption
- claim credit for doing the job
Building trust and accountability is the first step to delegation. When we trust people, we start believing in them and this in turn motivates people to perform better. We need to give a platform to people to test, perform and showcase their ability. When we refrain from delegation, we create a negative environment around us where people live in cages with no freedom to experiment. The surroundings become stagnant and there is no incentive to develop and perform.
Delegation always comes with an inherent risk of low performance or even a no-show. Come to think of it, if one day, our parents would not have taken the risk of sending us alone to the market to buy some essential grocery, would we have ever become independent. Ask a mother’s heart of the mixed feelings she had while doing this. Learning only happens when we give a free hand to people and allow them to make mistakes. These mistakes made now are called experiences in later life.
When we delegate, we must give full responsibility of performance of the task along with accountability of the results. Delegation is incomplete without expectation-setting and evaluation. Responsibility and accountability produce a sense of ownership and go a long way in improving the performance of the assignee.
At the end, we need to understand that delegation of work makes us more productive and helps the others to grow and develop.