How to Delegate Your Work to Employees Effectively
Do you sometimes feel like delegating to your team is like a push & play? When you instruct, they do. When you don’t, they don’t ! Like most business owners & CEOs, you wish that your team were more pro-active around their work, instead of just waiting on their boss.
When your employees do not get their work done well, you (owner or CEO) are forced to get it done yourself. You sometimes cannot help but feel that that’s your employee’s evil plan all along. Which is to get the boss doing their own work.
If you feel anything like the above, you are not alone…
My question to you is: Do your team members work FOR you, or work WITH you?
There’s a real difference is, in order for them to work WITH you, one of the most powerful characteristics of quality delegation is delegating the PURPOSE of the task as well.
Very few business owners and leaders share the PURPOSE, and share the big picture. Instead, what they do is INSTRUCT the TASK. It is really important that you can tell the difference. No wonder team members are push and play (not so pro-active), because they cannot see the big picture. And when they can’t, they don’t step forward on their own. Then we (business owners & CEOs) wonder why my employees are being so passive?
The real question is: Are they empowered enough?
So why do some leaders keep the “WHY” from their employees? I cannot understand this. However, i do manage to get some reasons upon confronting some of the leaders:
- They believe employees don’t understand the “why” even if they explained it.
Well, that’s where training and coaching comes in. The more your employees don’t understand something, the more work, you (owner/CEO) have to do.
- Some leaders don’t want to explain too much, out of busy-ness.
Explaining the why means you have to step back and show your employees the big picture.
- Some CEOs/owners don’t want to show employees the big picture. The less employees know, the better.
This is old-school thinking. Every bit of information is at our finger-tips now, if I don’t learn from you (my boss), I will learn elsewhere anyway.
A client of mine, empowered his team to build SOPs and Flowcharts for their receptionist team, and the team got together by themselves and came up with questions that customers frequently ask them. They brainstormed the replies, and presented the responses to the CEO. Once this was done, he empowered them to train all branches with the new scripts, SOPs and FAQs. All he did was Delegate the WHY (improving customer service) – and they decided on the TASK, and completed it.
It does sound really simple, but it takes a lot of practice. But once you get good at it, you will find that every task gets easier to delegate effectively. If you want more assistance, just catch my video – “The Art of Delegation”
So, remember: It’s about helping your team see further than just the TASK. We have to help our team members to see beyond the task, and understand the WHY behind what they are doing.
Stop delegating things to do, and Start delegating the PURPOSE behind the tasks.
Then give your employees some space to decide what they should do to achieve the objectives. When you give them space to decide on what tasks to take, they may not get this right. This is where you give them feedback, and help them think of better tasks to achieve the same why.
This is how you can empower your managers and team members. All the best!
WANT YOUR MANAGERS TO STEP UP? Go ahead and check out my coaching program – Leadership and Intrapreneurship Excellence Group Coaching Program for Managers and Business Leaders.
Asia’s Top Business Growth Specialist – Maresa Ng
Maresa Ng is a Passionate Entrepreneur who helps business owner grow their business to a stage where it is commercial, profitable, and can continue to work without them. Maresa has worked with thousands of business owners and she has been turning around businesses since 2008. She was a corporate and investment banker, but now she is the leading Business Growth Specialist & Business Advisor in South East Asia. She always believes, as entrepreneurs, you can have Great Quality of Life through Great Business!
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