You know that our mission at Orange Leaf Consulting is to take the “ick” out of the SALES, right? While we help you on your journey to take the fear out of sales and turn every person into a salesperson, we’re also working toward boosting your overall confidence. In our years of workshops and coaching, we’ve seen overworked individuals (especially leaders) taking on too much simply because they don’t know how to delegate. ‘Delegating’ often brings up fears of micromanaging, becoming a helicopter boss, or feeling like you are burdening someone else. On the contrary! We see delegation as collaboration. It’s actually an invitation to work together. And we want to invite you to start viewing delegation as a way to inspire others.
What’s Stopping You from Delegating
Trust and Guilt. These are two major driving factors preventing delegation.
Trust: If you’re a classic Type A, delegating work feels like exposure therapy. It’s challenging to release control of the reins and trust someone else to do what you’ve probably been doing for years. If you’ve ever said, “It’s just faster if I do it,” or “They’re not going to do it how it should be done.” We’re sorry to tell you, but you have trust issues. But think of it this way: if you don’t build trust with your colleagues to be able to delegate to them, you can have some serious negative side effects happen.
- You become a diminisher by devaluing the skills and capabilities of your employees/colleagues.
- Taking work away from someone else who could benefit from a learning and development opportunity.
- The task may be more expensive for you to complete than for someone with a lower billable rate.
Guilt: Delegating work isn’t always glamorous. It might feel like you’re assigning clerical “busy work,” and you don’t want to bog down anyone’s to-do list or overwhelm them. So, you bog down your own, on top of the hundred other things you’re balancing. If you were to take that off your plate, you could free up time to focus on tasks that have higher ROI, are better for the company, and keep everyone employed. Here are some other benefits of releasing guilt and delegating work:
- Provides job security. When employees are bored at work, they often have fears about the future of the company. Assign out your tasks to spread the wealth.
- Creates succession planning organically. You start to develop new skills in others that can eventually take on new roles.
- When you challenge an employee/colleague with a new assignment, it allows them to see how much you actually do trust them.
How to Properly Delegate
Communication skills are going to do some heavy lifting here. Make sure to ASK what their bandwidth is. Nothing kills a relationship like over-assigning projects. Ask them to invite you to delegate, especially when they have downtime. Then teach your team to hold you accountable. This means encouraging them to speak up to push them on the career path they want to go on.
Be specific. Asking “Hey, can you help me with a spreadsheet?” is going to get you nowhere. Taking the extra time to explain the actual task, parameters, due dates and give instructions provides a roadmap and helps you to relinquish control, knowing it’ll get done properly. Make sure to ask your team if they have any questions, if you missed anything, or even have them explain the task back to you for maximum understanding.
Delegation shouldn’t incite fear; it should instill confidence and trust. Your team will benefit knowing that you respect their abilities and want them to grow within the company. You’ll have more free time to focus on other projects (or rest), and can be seen as a growth-minded leader.
This month, we’re inviting you to delegate a task or project to a colleague. Is there someone you’ve seen with growth potential who’s just been waiting for the right opportunity? You can provide them with their time to shine. First, ask if they’re interested in the project. If they have the bandwidth to take it on, give specific instructions on how to complete it.
We’d love for you to report back with the success story of their new skill and what you were able to accomplish with the additional time. Visit us on Facebook and LinkedIn to share your stories.
And as always, make sure to GROW BIG OR GO HOME! ®