Delegation8

Managers typically are described as individuals who get things done through other people. Effective managers empower subordinates to accomplish assigned goals by delegating responsibility and authority to them. Empowerment means increasing your employees' involvement in their work through greater participation in decisions that control their work and by expanding responsibility for work outcomes.

Delegation allows a subordinate to make decisions by transferring authority from one organizational level to another, lower level. Delegation should not be confused with participation, which is a sharing of authority when making decisions. With delegation, subordinates make decisions on their own.

Delegation frequently is depicted as a four-step process: (1) allocation of duties, (2) delegation of authority, (3) assignment of responsibility, and (4) creation of accountability.

Allocation of duties. Duties are the tasks and activities that a manager wants to have someone else do. Before you can delegate authority, you must allocate to a subordinate the duties over which the authority extends.

Delegation of authority. The essence of the delegation process is empowering the subordinate to act for you. It is passing to the subordinate the formal right to act on your behalf. Assignment of responsibility. When authority is delegated, you must assign responsibility; that is, when you give someone rights, you also must assign to that person a corresponding obligation to perform.

Creation of accountability. To complete the delegation process, you must create accountability; that is, you must hold your subordinates responsible for properly carrying out their duties. Although responsibility means a subordinate is obliged to carry out assigned duties, accountability means the subordinate has to perform the assignment in a satisfactory manner. Subordinates are responsible for the completion of tasks assigned to them and are accountable to you for the satisfactory performance of that work.

Don't fall into the trap of assuming that to avoid the appearance of abdicating, you should minimize delegation. Unfortunately, this is the approach taken by many new and inexperienced managers. Lacking confidence in their subordinates, or fearful that they will be criticized for their subordinates’ mistakes, they try to do everything themselves. It might well be true that you're capable of doing the tasks you delegate to your subordinates better, faster, or with fewer mistakes. The catch is that your time and energy are scarce resources. It's not possible for you to do everything yourself. You need to learn to delegate if you're going to be effective in your job. This suggests two important points. First, you should expect and accept some mistakes by your subordinates. It's part of delegation. Mistakes are often good learning experiences for your subordinates, as long as their costs are not excessive. Second, to ensure that the costs of mistakes don't exceed the value of the learning, you need to put adequate controls in place. Delegation without feedback controls that let you know when serious problems arise is abdication.

Perhaps the primary reason managers delegate is that they can't do everything themselves. However, some other benefits also can accrue from delegating.

Delegation frees up a manager's time.

Delegation can improve decision making.

Delegation helps develop subordinates.

Delegation enhances subordinate commitment.

Delegation improves manager-subordinate relations.

Determinants of Delegation

In spite of all of these benefits of empowering employees through delegation, some managers still have a hard time doing it. Why? They often are afraid to give up control. Although delegation increases a manager's effectiveness and when done properly still provides control, several other factors determine whether or not a manager delegates.

The organizational culture tends to be a powerful influence on managers. If the organization is characterized by tolerance of risk, support for employees, and a high degree of autonomy for subordinates, managers will feel a great deal more comfort­able delegating than they would in a risk-averse, nonsupportive, and high-control culture.

Even within a supportive culture, however, managers vary in their propensity to delegate. Research has identified three factors that influence managers in this decision. The most important is the manager's perception of a subordinate's competence. Managers consistently appear reluctant to delegate if they question their subordinates' capability, trustworthiness, or motivation to assume greater responsibility. The second factor is the importance of the decision. Managers tend to delegate the less important decisions. The third factor is the manager's workload. Heavy workloads put stress and time pressures on managers, which lead to more delegation of authority. This research also found that the manager's personality plays a relatively minor part in influencing the delegation decision. That is, an individual's personal predisposition toward subordinates is not a key factor.

The important implication of these findings for developing your delegation skills is that effective managers put delegation into context. For example, even if the organizational culture supports delegation and a manager strongly believes in its value, managers are not likely to delegate if they don't feel that subordinates have the necessary ability and motivation.

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