Alan Rasof on Knowing When to Delegate

Knowing When to Delegate When entrepreneurs set up a business, they usually start small but eventually expand. The expansion calls for additional personnel who can carry out various responsibilities. Besides, entrepreneurs or investors are not experts; they’re only vision bearers of their organization. Critical personnel that entrepreneurs must hire is a leader who chooses to delegate or not specific responsibilities.

However, this decision depends on multiple factors, such as the critical nature of tasks and the repetitive nature of jobs. Employees have ample time to correct repetitive tasks, but leaders should be pretty conscious of delegating them to avoid chances of failure for rare tasks.

Responsibilities and Skills In deciding whether to delegate responsibilities or not, leaders should first determine their strengths, weaknesses, and ability to leverage other employees’ skills. If leaders only possess the critical skills to accomplish a particular task, they should never consider delegating it.

Besides, if other employees have the prerequisite knowledge to handle a job, it’s worth trusting it. When possible, leaders should also consider it a chance to let other employees express their skills, mainly when there’s room for error with repetitive tasks.

Time Management

If the conditions are right for delegation, leaders must allow employees enough time to handle assigned tasks. Ample time will enable employees to do trial and error, making it possible to rectify any discrepancies from intended goals.

Even when delegation seems efficient, leaders should not select too static responsibilities, allowing employees autonomy in their methods and the expected results. This means that leaders should start delegating non-complex projects and not final consequential projects.

When and When Not to Delegate Some conditions call for non-delegation. For instance, leaders are the vision bearers of an entrepreneur or their business. Therefore, they should never delegate it to others; they only pass it for other employees’ understanding, thus aligning it with goals and objectives. Leaders must be the ideology holders when pursuing a significant transformation, directing other employees towards achieving the change.

In other cases, some projects require a specific methodology. Such projects have little or no margin for error, and leaders should undertake them with their intimate knowledge and intricacy of skills to ensure that their organization achieves perceived success.