Delegation is very important part of your leadership. Proper delegation isn’t just about managing productivity, it is also an effective way to aid professional development of your team members. Delegation requires sophisticated skills, it is far from dumping a task on someone and telling them to obey.  If not done well, your employees may join the army of workers who leave their job because of their bosses. In this post I want to explore some common mistakes and solutions in task delegation, such as mismatching the task to the person’s skills, overprescribing the task and providing insufficient feedback.

Mismatching the task

The delegated task is not adequate for person’s skills or development goals, compromising the final result as person doesn’t feel capable or interested.

Solution: Look for opportunities to delegate tasks that are relevant to the professional development you’ve discussed with your team member. During these discussions, business goals and personal professional goals need to be tied to the development of technical and soft skills. Make sure these discussions are happening throughout the year and the professional development plan is regularly updated. This will help you delegate the right task to the right person and provide ongoing learning environment to your team.

Challenge: You will not always have ‘cool’ tasks to delegate as you are also managing productivity of the team. If you are assigning repetitive manual tasks, consider coming up with a project to automate them.  The challenge of automating tasks is far more rewarding than executing repetitive tasks.

Overprescribing the task

Too many details on how to solve the task were provided, which removed the freedom of executing the task in a new and different way.

Solution: Clearly indicate expectations of what needs to be done, not the details of how to execute it. Monitor the progress by establishing checkpoints. These checkpoints may be agreed time intervals or tied to task milestones. Assess the approach or solution by asking questions at these checkpoints. This process allows the team member to recognize any potential weaknesses of the solution on their own. At the same time, you will be able  to recognize areas in which you need to provide advice or coaching, and help the learning process.

Challenge: If you are new in a management role, it may take some time to let go of your expectations of how others should execute the task. It takes practice and patience, but it is rewarding as it helps you to become a better leader and may provide you with the insight into new ways of solving old problems.

Providing insufficient feedback

In this case, the delegated task has been completed but the amount of feedback provided wasn’t sufficient for learning.

Solution: Make sure you are providing feedback as the task is progressing. Each checkpoint has to contain feedback. These checkpoints should not be turned into one-way progress reports. The feedback has to be specific, and include details why something is considered to be done well, and why something needs improvement. In the end, overall feedback needs to be provided to the team member, but don’t forget to ask for feedback about the process and support you’ve provided.

Challenge:

Providing good feedback takes practice. Feedback about technical solutions or concepts is easier to provide, but good feedback also has to include behaviour and interactions. If the task involves interaction with other team members and departments, make sure you involve them during checkpoints which will enable you to have a broader picture to provide better feedback.