PlusStuff

Delegating Training

Leading at Light Speed is a must-have leadership book by Eric Douglas highlighting the 10 Quantum Leaps to build trust, spark innovation, and create a high-performing organization. Chapter 3 is all about how to Lead Through Others.

How you delegate speaks volumes about your leadership. If you do not delegate enough then trust suffers, and the company can’t move at light speed. Too much delegation and you will find people pointing fingers of blame at you. Let’s look at some of the common mistakes made in delegating:

Being unclear about outcomes: As part of delegating, it’s your responsibility to tie your expectations to the company’s core values, vision, and goals. The strategic focus and strategic plan will help you. If you tell a manager: “We need to cut your budget by 10 percent,” she’ll have no idea where to begin. What if she unwittingly chops a program that is critical to another department? Without knowing the priorities and long-term outcomes, it’s nearly impossible to make the right call.

Being unclear about quality: It’s not fair to ask for a Rolls Royce on an Escort budget. In order to be an effective leader, you must have concrete examples of what you want, in order to clearly share your vision with others. Is this a report?

Then follow up by showing them an example. Is this the unveiling of a new product? Refer to a success from the past. The time you spend clarifying your expectations will be returned ten-fold in time saved putting out fires later on.

Being unclear about the input level needed is crippling. You must provide guidance as to how much input to collect.

Here are three factors to weigh:

• How important is this decision – relative to other change initiatives in our organization?
• Relating to our customers, how many will be affected?
• Relative to our employees, how many people will be impacted?

Using these three criteria, you can assess how much input is needed. The table here shows how one manager assessed the impact of a decision about opening a new office in another state. In this case, the score indicated to her that she needed to invest in high levels of input gathering.

Related articles by Zemanta

• 10 Delegation Skills to Master (brighthub.com)
• Increase Your Productivity by Delegating Your Work (socyberty.com)
• Examples of Effective Delegation (brighthub.com)
• Career Journal: How to Be a Good Boss (blogs.wsj.com)
• Advantages and Disadvantages of Delegation (brighthub.com)

Popularity: 1% [?]

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

No comments yet.

Leave a comment