How To Know Who To Delegate To
Do you feel stressed and overloaded? If so, it may be time to recognize that even super-efficient you needs help and support from time to time. There’s only a limited amount that you can do, however hard you work. You can only work so many hours in a day. There are only so many tasks you can complete in these hours. One of the most common ways of overcoming this limitation is to learn how to delegate your work to other people.
First, recognize that there is no shame in asking help from others. There is no single-handed success in churches and organizations. Through proper delegation, teammates can help propel you, your ministry and your church to greater levels of effectiveness. So set aside your pride and recognize the talents that others can bring to the table.
To Whom Should You Delegate?
Once you make the commitment to delegate more of your work one of the first questions to answer is who is available to accept your delegated work. The factors to consider here include:
- The knowledge, skills, experience of the individual.
- What knowledge, skills, and experience does the individual have as they relate to the delegated task?
- Are they capable of receiving training? Are they willing to accept the training?
- Do you have the time and resources to provide the necessary training?
- The attitude of the individual.
- How does the individual feel about taking on additional work? Do they welcome it or view it as “piling on?”
- The interests of the individual.
- What kind of work do they like to do?
- How interested is the individual in this specific task or responsibility?
- Do they have a record of success with similar assignments?
- The current workload of the individual.
- Does the individual have the time to take on additional work?
- Will delegating this task require offloading or delaying other responsibilities and workloads?
- The individual’s preferred work style.
- How independent is the individual?
- How much direction do they like or require?
- What do they want from their job?
- How well do they work under the pressure of deadlines?
- The trust you have in the individual.
- Do you trust this individual to accomplish this task in a way that meets the expectations of everyone’s impacted by the assignment?
Cautions in Using Delegation
When you first delegate to someone you may notice that they take longer than you do to complete the task. This is usually because you have more experience with the task than they do. So, be patient and know that if you have chosen the right person to delegate to, and have informed and trained them properly, you will find they quickly get up to speed.
Delegation can also be perceived as “dumping” by the employee if it is just more of the same work they are already doing, or if it is repetitive mundane work. Employees need delegated work to be more challenging or offer more responsibility to feel that the assignment is worthwhile. Therefore, the supervisor must carefully balance the delegation of more mundane work with the delegation of work requiring more responsibility, authority, and challenge.
Effective delegation takes time and energy, but the trade-off is greater employee satisfaction, self-confidence, engagement, empowerment and success.
Posted on June 8, 2021
