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Although every organisation - and every coaching client - is unique, there are some common themes and issues that arise more frequently. On this page Acclaim Coaching’s principal coach, Leslie Berry, addresses some of these topics and provides some suggestions, hints and tips based on his experience.

Article Number 2 - Delegation

Before covering some methods for successful delegation, we need to be clear about what delegation is - and what it isn’t. ‘Delegation’ means taking part of your job and giving someone else the responsibility for doing it. I’ll assume that you are a manager, supervisor or team leader and that you have sufficient authority to delegate to someone who reports to you. Of course, it’s possible to delegate in other circumstances but we’ll keep it simple here. Merely allocating the team’s work amongst the team members is not delegation!

So, having agreed that delegation is about giving part of your job to someone else to do – something for which you’ll still be held accountable, even when someone else is doing it – we can start by thinking about the benefits of delegation and some of the barriers.

The benefits of delegation include:

• Freeing up some of your time, allowing you to focus on long-term projects or more important work that only you can do.
• Developing skills in the team member to whom you delegate.
• Developing a multi-skilled team.
• Using skills in the team to best effect.
• Helping with succession planning and with promotion decisions.
• Motivating the team by giving them more responsibility.
• Demonstrating trust in the team.

The barriers to delegation include:

• Feeling that the work won’t be done as well as you would do it.
• Concern that you’ll still be held accountable if the work isn’t done properly or on time.
• Not wanting to ‘let go’ of things you’ve always done or that you enjoy doing.
• Fear that the team member may be under pressure already.
• Lack of time to explain the work - it’ll be quicker to do it yourself.
• Fear of the team member doing it better than you.
• Not wanting to be seen as ‘dumping’ unpleasant work on the team.
• Unfair - seen as delegating more work to those who are willing and leaving those who will resist it with less to do.

Even though most managers can see the potential benefits of delegation, they tend to resist it because the barriers seem so strong. So, how can you learn to delegate effectively and successfully?

Leslie’s top ten tips for effective delegation:

1. Pick the right job to delegate – you might start with something small, simple, low risk and without a tight deadline. Consider whether your manager sees some parts of your job as not suitable for delegation; things they expect you to do personally.


2. Pick the right person – start with someone willing and able; you can move on to those who are less willing and less able when you’re more confident of your delegation skills.


3. Brief them thoroughly. Yes, I know it takes time! But you’ll free up more time in the long run and get the other benefits too.


4. Make sure they know the context of the job - why it has to done and how it fits in with other work in the department or the organisation. Are there any ‘political’ issues or other sensitivities they should be aware of? (If it’s too sensitive, it’s probably the wrong job to delegate!)


5. Do they have all the information and other resources they need? Don’t assume – check. Do they have an appropriate level of authority on computer programs? Do they know how to do things or where to find things that you take for granted?


6. Tell everyone who may be affected that someone else is doing this now, to ensure that others cooperate with requests for information etc.


7. Set up ways of monitoring how they’re doing. The golden rule is ‘hands off but eyes open.’


8. Don’t just check up on them unannounced. Tell them in advance that you’ll have a chat about it in a few days and answer any questions they have. This is much less threatening and doesn’t communicate a lack of trust.


9. Be prepared to hand over gradually; particularly more complex tasks. So, for example, a monthly report may take three or four months to hand over completely, with you doing less and them doing more month by month.


10. Review the process and be prepared to learn lessons about how to delegate more effectively.

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