The advantages of delegating are that it:

• relieves you of certain tasks and makes more efficient use of your time, enabling you to focus on the important parts of your role: planning, motivating, building your business
• develops the capability of your employees to make decisions, get things done and take responsibility
• allows decisions to be taken at the level where the details are best known
• is essential if you want your organisation to grow: not doing so is recognised as one of the biggest obstacles to growth
• can motivate your employees by giving them new challenges and improve their productivity
• is a great way of testing out the ability of your people to take on more
• contributes to the training and development of your employees
• prevents employees leaving: one of the most common reasons why employees leave an organisation is that they feel under-employed and under-challenged.

Delegate when:

• you have too much work to do
• you cannot find enough time to spend on the things you know are important
• you know that you need to stretch and develop members of your team
• you know that a particular team member has the skills and experience suitable for the task.

Consider delegating the following:

• tasks that you don't need to do yourself and those which are not the best use of your time
• specialist tasks which will suit those who have the necessary skills and know-how
• routine administrative tasks which take up too much of your own time: they may be small things which you enjoy doing (eg sending your own faxes, doing your own filing) but could be an inappropriate use of your time
• projects where it makes sense for one person to handle everything and which could be a good test of how the individual manages
• liaison with a person/customer/company that can be time consuming.

Do make sure that when you delegate, the employee is given the freedom of making decisions him/herself. Allow the employee to express his/her own ideas - this is also known as empowerment.

Delegation is not:

• just ridding yourself of a difficult, tedious or unrewarding task
• just giving someone a job to do
• setting up someone for failure by handing out an impossible task which others have failed at
• just making your life easier.

When considering who you should delegate to, consider the following:

• does the individual have the knowledge and skill required?
• does he/she have the required motivation?
• does he/she have the time?
• is he/she willing and able to learn, if he/she lacks the relevant experience?
• who would relish the opportunity and learn from it? The development of the individual should be an aim, when delegating.
• who can you trust to do the job? You don't want to over-supervise so who will get on with the job and refer to you if he/she is stuck or requires guidance? If you're unsure who to trust, try people out on small, less important tasks first.

Ensure that you cover:

• what needs to be done
• why it's important
• by when it is required
• what authority the employee has to make decisions and what should be referred (and to whom)
• how and when progress reports should be submitted
• how you propose to guide and monitor the task
• what resources and help are available.

Remember that the extent to which you need to spell out the detail of what needs to be done will depend on the individual to whom you are delegating. Don't stifle the employee's initiative but do ensure that sufficient details are given to do the job well.

It's a good idea when delegating to ask the employee to tell you how he/she proposes to carry out the task: this will give you an insight into how closely you need to monitor progress.

• Agree the output of the task which you have delegated, ie what the employee will achieve.
• Set deadlines (and milestones for more complex tasks, as a sensible way of breaking the tasks down into deliverable chunks).
• Schedule the deadlines in your diary.

• You may need to monitor progress fairly closely initially. However, stand back and watch from a distance as soon as you are confident that the employee is on the right track and progressing well.
• Ensure that your employee understands the 'no surprises' rule! The last thing that you want is to discover that something is going horribly wrong, at a stage when it's too late to get it easily back on track.
• Ensure that agreed timescales are met, unless there are good reasons for them to be rescheduled.
• Refrain from undue interference in the way in which the work is being done. It's the result that counts.
• Remember that a great delegator knows his/her employees well and strikes the right balance of control, support and freedom to act.
• Do not fall into the trap of forgetting all about the task until the completion date.

• When the task is completed, ask the employee to review what went well, what has been learned and what (f anything) should be done differently next time.
• Give the employee your feedback. Ensure that you give praise for what was done well. Take the opportunity to make constructive suggestions for change, from which he/she can learn.
• Remember that the aim is to develop the employee and increase the chances that an even better job is done next time.

• Plan what can be delegated next.
• Delegation can create a virtuous circle: the more you delegate, the more your employees learn, the more they are able to take on.

• Every successful manager achieved his/her position in the same way: by demonstrating how to achieve results.
• Delegation, if done well, is a winner for everyone.