‘Delegation’ is one of the most commonly used terms in corporate world. But still, I find few people understand what this term truly means for the leaders and what it does not.
Let’s start with what it does not mean:
- It is not about dumping work or giving orders to your sub-ordinates or colleagues.
- It is not about passing off the buck, which you are not able to do.
- It is also not about employees’ routine job tasks.
Now, with this background, let’s see what it can mean:
- It is something which produces growth of the person to whom the task is delegated. The delegated task should be something new and untested with a chance for failure.
- It is seen as an opportunity by the employee to grow his skills, knowledge and develop himself.
- It is not a part of employee’s usual job description, hence the task is negotiated with the employees depending on his bandwidth, interest and development goals.
This was about defining delegation. I will try to articulate how delegation should be done in my next blog post.