As a manager, there are instances when you find yourself with various demands that complete your little available time. It may become more problematic to the extent of reducing your efficiency in delivering key objectives of the organization.
Apparently, every manager is aware that it is practically impossible to do everything effectively on their own. Nonetheless, most of them still resist the possibility of delegating some of the tasks they handle. In general, some of these managers usually have predetermined myths about delegation. Some of these myths include;
Here are the eight myths about delegation:
1) You do not trust the abilities of the employee to delegate the task to
It is ridiculous if you have a team working with you but you do not believe they can effectively do the tasks you assign them. It only means that you either hired people who are incompetent and unskilled or you are merely a perfectionist. If this is the case, you need to realize that it all starts with you.
There is very little chance that you could be working with employees whom you do not trust their abilities but still deliver desirable results. And if you are a perfectionist, you need to know that things will be terrible for the organization when circumstances do not allow you to show up at work.
2) You believe you singlehandedly have all the organizational answers
If you think that you are the only person that has complete solutions and control of the organization, then probably you are not suited for a management role. Nevertheless, it is unreasonable for an organization to employ two or more workers if they believe one person can provide all answers that it needs.
Employees in an organization operate like a conveyor belt, which implies that one needs the other in a chain for the ultimate desirable result.
3) It takes a long time to train the employee
Sure, it may take quite some time to get them well prepared for handling the tasks, but the truth of the matter is that eventually, you will manage to save considerable hours by fittingly delegating. With time, your team becomes accustomed to the assignments, which allows them to deliver more efficiently than you would otherwise have done.
You only need to dedicate some few hours in training your employees on the specifics, and within no time you will be able to save yourself from workload and get more time for other critical issues.
4) Everyone has too much on their plates
Sure, employees could be busy, but they need to be busy working on things that are of top priority to the organization. If there is something important worthy of your attention, it needs to be replaced with what the employees are doing at that time.
Mostly, employees may seem to have too much on their plates as a result of improper management because you appear to be extremely busy doing your work. Proper delegation ensures efficiency and not necessarily workload on yourself and other employees.
5) You will delegate yourself out of employment
This is another of the myths about delegation that exist. Some managers think that when they delegate a task, it is one way of rendering themselves redundant in the company. There is always that feeling that the bosses may perceive your services are no longer needed if there are people who can handle such tasks at the same time.
Well, this is not true, and as a matter of fact, when you delegate tasks, you tend to create more time to do what you are indeed supposed to be doing. So much time as you coordinate with the employees effectively, you can never be deemed redundant by delegating tasks.
6) Delegation diminishes your authority
This is not true at all. As a matter of fact, the moment you start delegating tasks to your employees is the moment you start extending your authority because you will be spreading the tasks over to a wider group of junior employees. When you have employees working around together in attaining a common goal that you have set, it shows that you are extending your authority.
Working with employees towards a common goal gives them the impetus to ensure that they accomplish the goal and thus making it possible for you to have a command.
7) You once delegated, and nothing was done right
If you delegated a task to an employee in the past and probably the results were not fulfilling, it means that you did not take a better approach or failed in training the employee accordingly. It is possible that you probably assumed that everything would work out perfectly upon delegating it or rather they did not give the employee ample time to prove their worth.
It does not matter once you put everything in place the right way you can be confident of getting better results even from the employee. I find leaders do not delegate because of some deep-seated myths about delegation
8) If they mess up, I will still be accountable
Well, this might be true to some extent but an important point to note is that for one, you will not necessarily be as responsible for the mess as you would if you are the one who did it. Secondly, such a statement portrays more of your inability as a manager to appropriately delegate and train employees than showing employees ineffectiveness in accomplishing the tasks. Therefore, it all starts and ends with you will be judged mostly by your inability to delegate rather than taking responsibility for the mess properly.
Conclusion
All the myths mentioned above myths about delegation are just that, myths. The truth of the matter is that for you to succeed as a manager or a leader, you have to delegate some tasks to junior employees in the organization.
Delegation is one of the catalysts for delivering desirable results and better performance in an efficient organization. Everyone, in one way or the other, benefits when tasks are delegated. It also helps in building a formidable team and enhancing continuity for the future such that no vacuity is left whenever the manager leaves or during a transition period from one manager to the other.
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