Introduction

Learning how to delegate effectively is the key to leveraging yourself and multiplying your value to your company. Delegation allows you to move from what you can do personally to what you can manage.

The verb “to delegate” means to assign the responsibility for doing something, such as a task or project, to another individual. Delegating common time-consuming tasks to lower-level employees or contractors is a common practice among efficient entrepreneurs, business owners, and managers, as it allows them to focus on more impactful tasks that require their full attention.

Learning how to delegate is not only about maximizing your own productivity and value; it is also about maximizing the productivity of your staff. Your job as a manager is to get the highest return on the company’s investment in people.

The average person today is working at 50 percent of capacity. With effective management and delegation skills, you can tap into that unused 50 percent potential to increase your staff’s productivity.

Your job as a manager is to develop people. Delegation is the means by which you bring out the very best in the people that you have.

• The first step in learning how to delegate is to think the job through. Decide exactly what is to be done. What result do you want?
• The second step in delegation is to set performance standards. How will you measure to determine whether the job has been done properly or not?
• The third step is to determine a schedule and a deadline for getting the job done.