PREFACE:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

One reality every leader must come to grips with is the fact that you cannot be everywhere and you cannot do everything.\u00a0 There is just too much to be done.\u00a0 The art of delegating is often a difficult one to master for many leaders because at the core of effective delegation lies the need to trust.\u00a0 If you delegate authority to get certain things done you must relinquish the reins in that matter.\u00a0 If you assign someone the task of completing a function and you never fully give them the authority to become an agile leader in that arena, you haven\u2019t delegated at all.\u00a0 You\u2019ve simply told somebody to do something and you are still taking on that responsibility and leadership role.\u00a0 And, as is the case with most leaders, you can\u2019t be everywhere at the same time.<\/p>\n

Trusting others is harder for some people than it is for others.\u00a0 If you are a naturally skeptical person, it will be harder to trust others.\u00a0 It is understandable because trusting others means putting your success into their hands but you really are doing this anyway.\u00a0 How well people on your team work towards the achievement of team objectives will depend on how strongly they want to do this for you or for themselves.\u00a0 If they perceive that they are doing tasks for you, the quality of the work they do will directly relate to how much they trust and value you as a leader.<\/p>\n

The trust and value piece will stem from how followers perceive your relationship to them. If they see you as basically unfair and uninterested in their well-being, you will, most likely, not get a very strong effort from them. But if your team members believe that you are rewarding them proportionately with respect to the amount of time, energy, effort, knowledge, skill, ability, and resources they are putting into the task you will be more apt to get better than average efforts and outcomes.\u00a0 Furthermore, if you have been crystal clear in your expectations, progress reporting timelines, and the processes and procedures you expect to be followed, they will reward you with focused attention to the tasks at hand.\u00a0 And finally, if they believe you have taken a personal interest in them and have placed your trust in their intentions and abilities, you will see them achieve excellence in outcomes.\u00a0 At this point you won\u2019t have to monitor the team, they will monitor themselves.\u00a0 When these three steps are taken in combination with shared accountability, each team member knows what to do, how to do it, and how to accurately measure the outcomes of the process.<\/p>\n

If you do the ground work beforehand you need to let go and let the team do its work. By stepping back and allowing the team to work as a team what you really do is emancipate them.\u00a0 You give them the total freedom to make things happen.\u00a0 If they have a context in which to do their work and if they are fully aware of what is needed, they will find a way to get it done.\u00a0 For at this point, they are no longer doing it for you; they are doing it for the team and for the client or customer for which the project is intended anyway.<\/p>\n

THE ARTICLE:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

DELEGATING:<\/u><\/strong> Good leaders realize that they have limitations.\u00a0 There are limitations to their time, their skills, their knowledge, their energy, and in many other areas.\u00a0 For that reason alone, the art of delegation is critical for the great leader.\u00a0 Beyond the mere capacity of an individual there is the fact that followers need to feel that they are truly needed.\u00a0 This can only happen when they have the sense that their skills, knowledge, and abilities are appreciated and used by the leader.\u00a0 So in combination, the needs of the leader and the needs of the followers are met.\u00a0 To effectively delegate the leader must know his or her people.\u00a0 It is not OK to guess and it is often not OK to simply go by what people say they can do.\u00a0 There are people who are not very good judges of their own abilities. If you want confirmation of this, simply watch the first few episodes of American Idol.<\/p>\n

To delegate with effectiveness a leader must ascertain the abilities of the people.\u00a0 Past performance can be helpful but paying careful attention to what is going on around you is just as important.\u00a0 In the early minutes, hours, and days of a project, what are people doing and how well are they doing it?\u00a0 <\/p>\n

At the beginning of this book, we stated that leaders need to learn how to lead based on who they are not what a book tells them they should do.\u00a0 Let\u2019s take a moment to examine some differing approaches to leading.\u00a0 There may be as many as nine different approaches that leaders may use to move a group of people towards a desired outcome.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Some leaders may rely on establishing a common vision, mission and purpose<\/u> while others may prefer to focus on preparation and tactics<\/u>.\u00a0 Some leaders might work at building trust and common bond<\/u> between team members while others might foster innovations and change<\/u>.\u00a0 There are leaders that will zero in on responsibility and integrity<\/u> while others will develop strategies and discipline<\/u>.\u00a0 And then there are leaders that will build team synergy<\/u> or focus on results<\/u> or maintain consistency and conformity<\/u>.\u00a0 And there will combinations of these but no one way is better than any other way.\u00a0 If what works for you is not what works for another person, so be it. <\/p>\n

\u00a9 2013-2015 Culture by Choice-WTBG, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin: All rights reserved distribution of this information outside of an academic setting no permitted without express written permission from Culture by Choice-WTBG.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PREFACE: One reality every leader must come to grips with is the fact that you cannot be everywhere and you cannot do everything.\u00a0 There is just too much to be done.\u00a0 The art of delegating is often a difficult one to master for many leaders because at the core of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturebychoice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturebychoice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturebychoice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturebychoice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturebychoice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/culturebychoice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":367,"href":"https:\/\/culturebychoice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363\/revisions\/367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturebychoice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturebychoice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturebychoice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}