3 Delegation Steps You Might Be Missing

In all my work with various clients over the years, "delegation" has consistently emerged as one of the most challenging management skills. 

It's no surprise, really. In fact, delegation was the skill that most consistently showed up as an opportunity for growth in my own 360 reviews at Boeing. Perhaps you can relate.

So, this week, I'm excited to share three simple steps that often get overlooked in delegation practices. These steps will make a huge difference in setting both you and your employees up for success.

• Read the video transcript

  One of the most common challenges that I see managers facing is around the practice of effective delegation, especially for a manager who was once an expert in their field. Everybody looked to them to do the work well, and now, all of a sudden, they're required to trust others to do the work well.

  And so today, I want to cover three specific tips around delegation that may help smooth out the process, three things that actually are often missed in the process of delegation.

  The first one is explicitly communicating to any other parties involved that you are passing ownership of Project X to a member on your team. You're passing it to Sam. Instead of people looking to you as the owner, now you want all eyes to look to Sam as the owner of this project. You yourself will be looking to Sam as the leader and the owner of this task or project. So you are clearly communicating to others that you are shifting ownership, and he is the one in charge, he or she, okay?

  The second thing is getting really clear on how much authority this employee has over the delegated task or project. When can they make a decision and run with it, and when or what types of scenarios should be ones where they come to you for some input? If you can offer some guardrails around that upfront, that will actually make them feel a stronger sense of ownership and give them clarity on those types of scenarios when they should actually check back with you.

  And then the third tip that I will share today around delegation is to set up some sort of monitoring or check-in system upfront. At the beginning of the delegation process, decide then and there when and how are we going to check in? When should Sam share updates with you? What will that monitoring process look like? Because if we establish that upfront, there's safety for both parties, and then it doesn't feel like micromanagement when you are asking for an update, when you are checking in. Because guess what? We agreed on that upfront.

  So those are your three tips for delegation today. There are many more out there, but three that are often missed, and I hope you can put them to use right away so that you will be setting both yourself and the employee up for success in the challenge of delegation.