written by Mark Murphy, CEO of Leadership IQ

We all know delegating is a critical leadership skill. It gives us time to do the stuff we were actually hired to do, and just as importantly, it develops the people underneath us (aka "our bench"). They can't grow if they never get bigger and better assignments.
But if delegation has all these benefits, why don't we do more of it? Why is it so hard? The answer is pretty simple and it lies in two categories: ego and/or doubt.

Ego says: "I'm the best, nobody can do it quite like me, I can do it so much faster than everybody else."

Doubt says: "My employees don't really have the skills to do what I can do. They aren't quite ready for this kind of work."

If you're in a leadership role, these are pretty damning statements. After all, the whole purpose of being a leader is to build others around us. So if we're the only person who can do certain work effectively, or if we feel our employees aren't ready to handle certain responsibilities, we're not doing our job as leaders.

Leaders must be able to share work and responsibility. Luckily there are tools to help. Specifically, there's a set of techniques we call the "7 P's of Delegation".

7 P's of Delegation

The 7 P's of Delegation help you get the results you want. You grow the people around you, while getting work done effectively and freeing up your time to focus on things that add more value for your organization.

1. Past History: Ask yourself: Do I have good reason to doubt my employees? If it is legitimate, how am I going to fix it? The irony here is that we see leaders express doubt about delegating to their employees and yet they give these same people 4s and 5s on their performance reviews. It has to be one or the other. If your employees aren't capable, they should be getting 1s and 2s. If they are capable, and get 4s and 5s, then by definition they must be able to handle some delegation.

2. Priorities: This can be the toughest of the 7 P's. It boils down to figuring out what kind of work should be delegated. To help, you can ask yourself 5 questions: "How much do I enjoy doing it? How competent am I at it? Does it absolutely have to be done? Am I uniquely qualified to do it? Is this a critical piece of why the organization put me in this job?" This defines your Green, Yellow, Orange and Red Light work.

3. Particulars: Now that you've done the hard work of figuring out which activities you should be delegating, it's time to define the particulars and set clear expectations to communicate exactly what you need from your employees. Answer these questions: "What does the end point look like? Why are we doing this particular activity? Who's going to benefit from it? What resources are necessary? What obstacles can we anticipate?"

4. Progress: Creating milestones and predefined checkpoints - and assigning them as part of the delegation from the beginning - is key to keeping the delegated project on track. By predefining progress points along the way, you're able to keep in touch without having the other person feel micromanaged.

5. Positive Expectations: If you begin with the expectation that your employee is going to mess things up, they probably will. If you begin with the expectation that they are going to achieve success, they probably will. As leaders we can get significant results simply by believing - and expressing that belief - that our employees are capable of achieving great things.

6. Praising: Tactically, this is fairly straightforward and simple. But emotionally, it can be difficult. Most managers are more geared towards discovering bad news and fixing problems than they are to praising good performance. Providing specific, positive reinforcement is a more effective teaching tool than negative reinforcement, because doing something right and learning from it will teach just as much, if not more, than doing something wrong and getting reprimanded.

7. Process: When you're finished delegating, make sure you're in the process of continual learning and continual improvement. Ask your employees: "How did this project go? What's one thing you'd like to see more of from me? What's one thing you'd like to see less of from me? How about other people's involvement? What worked, what didn't?"

For more tips on better managing your time so you become a more efficient leader, join us this Thursday at 1pm Eastern for our webinar "Finding the Time to Be a Leader."
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