Delegation Trains Everyone: Manager Guide to Letting Go

Delegation skills separate overwhelmed managers from effective leaders: the inability to delegate is one of the most common problems of managers. Management and leadership is all about getting results by organising and supervising a workforce. Poor delegation or no delegation is inefficient and expensive. And the worst thing about not delegating is that managers are losing wonderful training opportunities for their workers.

Managers have many reasons for not delegating:

• They feel at ease doing routine tasks rather than supervising the work of others
• They aren’t familiar with the skills of their workers and therefore unsure of other people’s ability to take more responsibility
• They hate correcting other people’s work
• They know they can do some things better than others

Delegating is hard work, but it’s work that is needed to help an organization grow and improve. You can tell people what to do, you can show people what to do, but by far the best way to teach people is to simply let them do the work themselves. Delegation provides that training avenue.

Delegation Skills: Why Bother

There are basically two good reasons to delegate:

One – It gets the job done more efficiently

Two – It provides training and new experiences for members of workteams

What to Hand Over First

Start with recurring tasks that have clear done criteria. Writer Andrew E. Schwarts says, “Too many managers waste both time and energy performing tasks an employee could perform just as well, thereby lowering productivity while raising operating costs. The answer to the problem is easy–delegation. However, many managers still limit their own effectiveness, create imbalances in the organization, waste their department’s time and energies, and fail to develop their subordinates by either ignoring or mismanaging the techniques of delegation.”

The ability to delegate tasks and control productivity simultaneously is an essential
skill for managers. It’s kind of like juggling three or four balls in the air, while ordering fastfood out your car window and talking on a cellphone at the same time. There are many pitfalls that can undermine efforts to
delegate, but there are also some basic steps to help managers ease their workload through
delegation while maintaining control.

There are six functions of an effective delegation and control system:

1. Planning and Goal Setting – If everyone is involved in the planning and goal setting of a project, it is more likely that everyone will buy into the work involved to bring the project to fruition — which makes delegation easier.
2. Responsibility and Authority – Before delegating, everyone needs to know which way the responsibility flows. Who reports to who? That question must be answered for effective delegation. James G. Patterson, a business writer and faulty member of the University of Phoenix, advises, “Be prepared to supervise. All projects require regular monitoring – especially in the beginning stages. So do all employees. But some projects require more scrutiny than others, and some employees demand more direction. Here, too, it’s a matter of matching the task with the person.”
3. Negotiation – “Can you do this?” Give and take is part of the delegation process.
4. Management by Exception – Only the unusual problem or case is brought to the top.
5. Consultation and Coaching – Think of consultation as a the bedside manner of a physician taking the pulse of a family member. The manager needs to know how the patient is doing, and must make suggestions to improve the overall health of the individual.
6. Review and Control – This is kind of like consultation and coaching, but from a step back. Reviewing project aspects and controlling the work and schedule insures continued progress toward worthwhile goals. In reviewing the project the results should be addressed, the methods that were involved should be not criticized very much, if at all.

Delegation can result in some mistakes being made, but mistakes can also be learning opportunities. Praise should be given for jobs well done. Each time delegation happens there is a chance that everyone will improve their standing in the organization.

Delegation Skills Checklist for Monday

List every recurring task you did last week and mark each as keep, hand over, or drop. For handover candidates, write the done criteria in three plain lines, name exactly one owner, and agree the check-in date together. Schedule one fifteen-minute check-in midway through the work rather than hovering over progress daily.

When mistakes happen, review the criteria first, not the person. Unclear instructions cause most early failures, so tighten the written brief together and try again without blame. Praise completed handovers publicly and promptly to reinforce the delegation habit across the entire team.

Who Gains Most From Delegating

New managers drowning in individual-contributor habits benefit first. Growing teams come next: founders who delegate early and consistently scale without burning out. Verdict: strong delegation skills multiply every other management ability.

Mistakes That Kill Delegation Skills

Dumping tasks without context tops the list: the owner guesses, rework follows, and trust drops. Always state the goal, the constraints, and what good looks like before walking away.

Second, skipping check-ins until the deadline. A brief midway review catches drift early, when fixes cost little. Third, reclaiming work at the first wobble teaches staff to wait rather than think. Coach through the wobble patiently and delegation skills grow steadily across the whole team over time.

Track every handover in a shared list with owner, deadline, and status columns. Review the shared list together each Friday morning and celebrate every completed item loudly.

Related: soft skills for project managers and soft skills training guide. For management standards, see Project Management Institute.