Delegation as a business owner is essential. If you don’t delegate, you are setting a ceiling on your level of success and your profitablity. However, when I am coaching people I hear a lot of pain and drama associated with the delegating.
I often hear things like,
“my team members are not as motivated/good/caring as I am”
“this work/client is too important, I can’t delegate this to someone else”
“I have to do everything myself until the business can afford to hire other people”
“they won’t ever do it the way I can”
“I’m never satisfied with what I get, so I end up redoing it before I can present it to clients”
Does that sound like you sometimes? In my free e-book “5 Essential Keys to Delegation” available when you subscribe to my newsletter, I describe the key aspects that will support you as a leader in feeling empowered to take back the driver’s seat of your business.
To summarise, the 5 Keys are: Clarity and Context, Results: Measurement Focus, Agreements and Accountability, Trust and Mindset.
Clarity and Context are about getting clear on where you are at, is it the right time to delegate something that you can also do? What do you want to delegate – is it a task, a role or a function? Task delegation is a great place to start as it does not require delegating decisions in the same way that delegating a role of function does. Delegating a task needs to achieve a balance between the degree of autonomy you give a person and the degree of capability they have.
Results: Measurement Focus involves measuring the success of your business, these are your key performance indicators (KPIs).Analysis of your KPIs will allow you to measure the performance of your team, and show you when you need to add a resource to your team.
Agreements and Accountability means establishing an agreement, in writing or verbally, with the person to whom you are delegating and know how you will hold each other accountable to that agreement. Make your agreement simple and straightforward, use quality conversations and if in doubt get advice from your HR advisor or solicitor.
Trust means allowing others the opportunity to be responsible so that they are not always bringing something back to you. It may be that you are setting this up unconsciously with your people and it may be a powerful pattern in your life, that is, you are always to the “go to” person or the one that takes charge. Is that tendency undermining your power to delegate?
Mindset drives all your decisions and action and creates the consequences that you experience every day. In terms of delegating, if you think “they never deliver what I want” then they never will. Your mindset is self-fulfilling, so the habitual beliefs that you have will create the behaviours in yourself and your people. Conscious development of an empowering mindset is the work of a leader who wants to make an impact.
To learn more about delegation, subscribe here to receive a free copy of my E-Book, 5 Essential Keys to Delegation and receive Lighten Up, my newsletter. If you would like to work with me personally, start a conversation with me here.
