Steps in delegation

• Plan ahead
• Identify needed skills and levels
• Select most capable personnel
• Communicate clearly
• Set deadlines and monitor the progress
• Empower the delegate
• Evaluate the job performance
• Reward accomplishments

Determine what you will delegate. Effective delegation begins with defining your responsibilities. Write down all of your activities and responsibilities. Review your master list and categorize all of the items into two secondary lists: things you alone must do and things that others could do or help you complete. Anything that falls into the second list presents an opportunity for delegation.

Choose the right/capable person to delegate the task to. Andrew Carnegie said, “The secret to success lies not in doing your own work, but in recognizing the right person to do it.” The key to finding the right person to delegate an assignment to is matching skills and attitude to the task at hand.

Clarify the desired results. When the results are clear, it allows the employee to use his or her own creativity and resources to accomplish the task. An added benefit of effective delegation is the individual may find a better and more effective way to accomplish the task or achieve the desired results.

Clearly define the employee’s responsibility and authority as it relates to the delegated task. Clearly communicate the expectation, responsibilities, and timeline (and set deadlines). Be sure to ask the employee to share his or her understanding.

Establish a follow up meeting or touch points. The follow up meetings should be focused on two things-monitoring progress and determining the need for assistance. The number of follow up meetings will vary based on the scope of the task or project and whether the employee is new or a long term member of the department.

Reward accomplishments: appreciation of successful accomplishments.

Kinds of delegations

• Full delegation
• Partial delegation
• Conditional delegation
• Formal delegation
• Informal delegation

Errors in delegation

• Under delegation: The manager may become over worked and overwhelmed. This frequently comes from his/her assumption that delegation may be interpreted as the lack of ability on his/her part to do a correct or complete job. Another frequent cause for under delegating is the manager desire to ‘do the whole job by myself’ because of the belief that he/she needs experience or the belief that he/she can do it better and faster than anyone
• Over delegation: Some managers over delegate as they are poor monitors of time and spend most of their time just trying to get organized. Others over delegate because they feel insecure in their ability to perform a task
• Improper delegation: It includes delegating at the wrong time, wrong person for a wrong reason. It may include assigning the task and responsibility that are beyond the capability of the person
• Upward delegation: When the manager delegated a task to a subordinate, the subordinate makes use of the manager to complete the task

CONSTRAINTS TO EFFECTIVE DELEGATION

• Lack of confidence in the
• Reluctance of the supervisor to delegate since he/she feels can accomplish the
• Feeling of insecurity that is the subordinate may subsequently take over her
• Lack of communication skills to make the delegate understand her/his role/responsibilities.
• The delegate may lack technical skills required to accomplish the
• Lack of willingness by the staff/subordinate to take up the
• Prestige and power consciousness by the manager

• Confidential nature of task
• Legal impediments associated with the way the task is done/accomplished.

Factors that affect delegation

• Size of organization: usually small organizations have limited role/activities to accomplish therefore delegation is minimal yet in bigger organizations delegations is very necessary.
• Importance of the duty or decision: important sensitive organizational decisions need the involvement and control by the top manager while less sensitive/important tasks can
• Task complexity: some tasks are better performed by the managers because of their expertise and thus cannot be delegated since the subordinates may lack enough expertise to accomplish them. Whereas others may be performed by any employee of the organization.
• Organizational culture: these are the norms, expectations and values of the organization whereby some organizations always prefer the manager to be the final decision maker in all organizational activities hence do not opt/support delegation which is opposite in other
• Qualities of subordinates: before delegating roles to subordinates consideration of their abilities, strengths and weaknesses should always be put at the back of the mind.

Obstacles in delegation

• Fear of being disliked
• Inability to give up any control of the situation
• Inability to prioritize using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
• Lack of confidence to move beyond their level
• Tendency to isolate oneself and choosing to complete all tasks alone
• Lack of confidence to delegate to staff who were previously one’s peers
• Ineffective to communicate effectively and develop working relationships with other team
• Thinking of oneself as the only one who can complete the task
• Lack of knowledge about staff’s capability

Barriers of delegation in different level

Organizational level

• Lack of established methods and procedures
• Lack of means of coordination and communication
• Unstable and changing nature of work
• Size and location of an organization Managerial level

• Superiors are afraid that others will not make proper decisions or carry them in a desired manner
• Fear that disloyal centers will develop among strong subordinate
• In public administration political consideration often make delegation difficult
• At time who desire to delegate do not know how to do it
• “I can do it better myself” fallacy
• Lack of ability to direct
• Lack of confident in staff
• Absence of control that warn of impending difficulties
• Aversion of taking risk Subordinate level
• Easier to ask the boss
• Fear of criticism
• Lack of necessary information and resources
• Lack of self confident
• May have more work than the employee can do
• Positive incentive may be inadequate
• More work than once capacity to work
• Lack of resources and information to do a good job

Symptoms of poor delegation

• Long queue before boss room
• Boss is always busy
• Boss taking suitcase to home at evening
• Subordinate unhappy
• Disorganized resource
• Always delay in work

Five rights for delegation

• Right person
• Right task
• Right circumstances
• Right communication
• Right supervision

Development of delegation process in patient care

• Know the patient
• Know the staff member

• Know the task delegated
• Explain the task and expected outcome
• Expect responsible action from the delegates
• Assess and supervise job performance
• Evaluate and follow

Delegation skills

• Create an environment of trust and co operation
• Create environment of teaching and learning
• Promote client satisfaction
• Communicate effectively
• Provide feedback and follow-up evaluation

Guidelines to effective delegation

• Defining the task clearly
• Outlining the scope of the task
• Assigning a deadline for follow up and task
• Clear unity of command; each person in an organization should report to one
• Trust the delegate in terms of honest and confidence
• The duration of the delegated task should be specified to the delegatee
• Explain to others that you have already delegated the work and to whom
• Do not interfere unless asked to and be prepared for some mistakes
• Members of the organization should know the proper flow of authority and chain of command