Here are some important steps in delegating properly and empowering staff.

Tell them why you chose them for the project (obviously you have confidence) It pays to empower someone while giving them another task. What holds people back from success and feeling fulfilled with their jobs is not stepping out of their comfort zone and taking on new challenges. Delegating a new task or role can be motivating for someone who has been told why they were chosen for the job.

Let them do it their way – ‘There is more than one way to skin a cat’ they say, which also carries true when delegating to staff. Give staff the opportunity to use their own method of getting the job done. If you already have a system in place, teach delegates your system and what has worked for you and why, while offering them the opportunity to add their own intelligence if they feel they can improve on anything.

Be clear about expected results and deadlines – By being clear about the end result, you are setting important guidelines for success. The person you are delegating to will benefit by beginning the project already able to picture the end result in their mind.

Communicate boundaries – Let your delegates know the boundaries of what is acceptable or not acceptable in getting to the end results and explain why. Often taking the communication a little further to explain why things need to be done a certain way helps people understand the system as a whole and see the big picture of why the methods of doing things is important. Boundaries go two ways, so be sure to let your delegate communicate back to you and ask questions. Listen carefully to them so that they feel understood and are comfortable with the level of support that they are getting from you.

Set up scheduled checkpoints – This is where we set people up for success or failure. If you don’t check someone’s progress, only to find out later about all of the errors made, you can damage their confidence, waste a lot of time and money, and ruin what could have been a great set-up for a new delegated skill. It is important that you both know in advance when the check points will happen, and hold to the commitment.

Give feedback – When you review progress regularly, both parties can celebrate the successes and correct any issues requiring further training or attention along the way. This is your opportunity to recognize the positive aspects of the new arrangement, offer suggestions for further improvement, and leave the employee feeling motivated to continue to strive for excellence.

Using these steps, I can promise you that, after investing your time in proper delegation, your tasks will most likely be done even better than they were done before and your time will be more liberated to spend as you wish.

Delegate and give the gift of doing. Auxiliary staff training, team building sessions and better performance planning all take time away from production for a short time, but the pay off is extraordinary.

Penny Tremblay