I was recently quoted in an article about the Art of Delegation by the Animation Guild’s Keyframe Magazine, and I wanted to expand on a couple of ideas I was quoted on.
If you would like to read the full article, you can check it out by clicking here (page 39). It’s well-written, and even though the audience is primarily leaders and managers in the animation industry, the concepts are field-agnostic.
Here are a few takeaways.
1. The Art of Delegation is About Empathy First
Here’s the direct quote from the article
“The best supervisors are those who lead with empathy and treat employee mistakes as learning experiences,” Osman says. “This helps them solve challenges with their employee instead of for them.
The best leaders don’t rush to judgment and focus on solving problems with their employees. They ask non-probing questions such as: “How do you think we can solve this?” or “How do we avoid this from happening going forward?”
2. You What You Want Before You Delegate
Here’s the direct quote from the article:
“This may sound obvious, but many leaders make the mistake of starting a delegation discussion with their employees while they’re still in brainstorming mode,” says Osman.
“This problem is further exacerbated when coupled with the fact that employees usually won’t question their manager’s request because they want to avoid being perceived as incompetent.
An invitation to discussion from a manager may instead be interpreted as a hard directive, leaving subordinates to try and execute ambiguous tasks. These factors can lead to situations where employees are confused about delegation expectations, which can result in failure.”
Those factors can lead to situations where employees are confused about delegation expectations, which can result in failure. So managers should be prepared and know exactly what they want to delegate to their subordinates before assigning responsibility.
Other FAQs about the Art of Delegation
Q: How should someone prioritize his/her time and energy as a leader?
A: Leaders should focus on the activities that cannot be delegated to other employees. For example, activities that require strategic decisions or tasks that get escalated to their level because subordinates do not hold a certain level of authority.
Q: How should a leader choose who should do what?
A: Understanding every team member’s capabilities is the foundation for delegating tasks. A leader should think about the skills of their team members, as well as what their strengths and weaknesses are. They should put some thought into finding the right person-role fit, which measures the harmony between an individual and the role they’re assigned to.
Q: What are some factors in making sure that an employee is prepared?
A: The primary factor is to explain the task clearly, and the best way to do so is for a manager to schedule a quick meeting to go over the task with the employee verbally.
This doesn’t have to be a formal meeting and could be a quick 15-minute phone call to give the employee the chance to understand the task better and discuss it with the manager.
Managers should avoid sending an email as a first step because email is a very transactional mode of communication and does not give leaders a good sense of whether the employee fully grasped the task.
During the delegation meeting, managers should verify the understanding of the task by their employees.
A best practice is to continuously ask questions such as: “Does this make sense?” or “This might have been too fast. Shall I repeat it back to you?” so that it’s more comfortable for employees to confirm that they understand what is expected of them.
Q: What are some of the challenges that leaders face as they grant authority and create responsibility?
A: A common mistake that managers usually make is that they get very detailed with their task assignments. The key is to describe goals and not actions during the delegation process.
One way to accomplish that is to avoid being too prescriptive with task assignments. Managers can do this by focusing on the objectives and not the process itself.
In other words, they should focus on the what and not the how.
This empowers employees to own the task, allowing them to learn better through their own approach.
Another challenge is that leaders don’t set the right expectations about the delegation process. They can do that by explaining to their employees that task delegation is a learning process for everyone.
Leaders should also let their employees know that they’ll give feedback about two things throughout the delegation process. The first is what’s going well and the second is what can be improved.
Doing so ensures that there won’t be any surprises and helps to manage expectations. This also lets employees know they’re not expected to be perfect and that a few mistakes are okay.
Q: Are there some effective strategies regarding following up on the job while it’s being done?
A: One effective strategy is to give clear timelines and schedule intermediate checkpoints. Checkpoints are quick meetings to go over the work that has been accomplished up to a certain point. They help leaders connect with employees to ensure that things are going well. They also give employees to ask clarifying questions and course-correct if they were headed in a wrong direction.
For more, check out my short book “Effective Delegation of Authority.”
