We’ve all had managers who are great delegators – or at least I hope we have!
Great delegators are never shy when it comes to telling people to do things, allocating “tasks” and “responsibilities” so they don’t have to do it all themselves. While delegation has its place, as a manager you need to think more about how you might use “tasks” to develop people, thus elevating their skills and ability.
Personally, my approach is to assign tasks when appropriate to the skills, competency, or development needs of a team member. Some people will be a little “slopey shouldered“, so you can’t always expect people to be volunteering for more work. The more ambitious or eager to learn or impress may however put their hands up, or simply dive in boots and all!
Another approach that I use, when I know my team is grinding through a substantial pile of work. Is to offer the team the opportunity to pick up something additional. If they can’t or won’t, you’ll have to assess whether this is something that you need to pick up yourself, or something that you’ll need to explicitly assign. Getting volunteers is always better in my opinion.
Regardless of the level of team that you are managing, don’t forget that you’re not just managing a ‘title,’ you’re shaping future leaders in every possible way – their mindset, values, beliefs, and habits, so provide them with opportunities
Consider this simple example. When you’re managing some project, it’s natural for you to give the administrative tasks to your most junior team member. A good manager however will actually think about “what will this individual learn from this task?”. And “how can I grow this person to be more capable of doing more in the next project?”.
Don’t be tempted to give away responsibilities you personally don’t want to do, instead, give away responsibilities that have a purpose, the purpose being that it will develop your people and they become better off, after completing the task.
