Delegation and empowerment in your team: a simple guide for leaders

Posted on Jul 19, 2022 at 08:07 PM

Delegation and empowerment are among the most critical leadership skills each executive leader must master and employ at the correct times and places.

We cannot measure the success of executive leaders according to the indicator of their achievement but rather by their ability to assign the right task to the right employee and monitor the workflow to ensure the highest productivity of the required quality.

You possess good delegation and empowerment skills that will ensure an effective and coherent team capable of meeting delivery deadlines with minimal effort and costs—all by developing staff skills, discovering the trove and employing it correctly.

From this point of view, each leader had to know the assets and rules of delegation and empowerment to be considered if he wanted to assign specific tasks to many employees. In your hands is a simple and brief guide that will inform you of the essential information that will lead you to a better mandate.

What is the difference between delegation and empowerment?

Any institution, whether private or public, needs both concepts as a cornerstone of the work system but frequently confuses the delegation with administrative empowerment. Thus not benefiting from any delegation or empowerment.

The concept of delegation refers to the transfer of responsibility for specific tasks from one person to another based on dimensions and considerations established by the Executive Officer. Or the delegation process can be defined as giving certain functions to certain persons because their competencies and possibilities consent to the type of assignment.

The delegation process also includes granting these participants certain powers and exceptions that may serve their assigned functional role, to achieve many tasks with less time and higher quality.

The concept of empowerment is based on expanding the capabilities and supporting participation in decision-making by all workers by giving them confidence and authority to accomplish some administrative tasks, as well as empowering them with all the necessary powers for this administrative role.

This will make them leaders capable of making different decisions and executing all tasks independently without referring to the Senior Manager but by securing limits that cannot be overstepped.

What are the essential benefits of empowerment and delegation?

Abandoning some of the tasks that need high efficiency to be accomplished may be one of the most significant difficulties facing the leader, especially if he belongs to groups that believe that accomplishing all tasks themselves is simpler, faster and of higher quality.

Nevertheless, the importance of acquiring delegation and empowerment skills in administrative work is indispensable, thanks to the many advantages it has inherited for the responsible person and the general work. These benefits include:

• The Executive Leader gives more significant time and capacity to focus on high-level tasks.
• It allows employees to demonstrate their skills and ascertain their potential.
• Contributes to empowering talent management and personal and practical staff skills.
• Control and improve time management, efficiency and productivity.
• Establish a trusting relationship with employees and activate one team's communication skills and spirit.

What are the foundations and skills of empowerment and effective delegation?

We cannot call the authorisation and empowerment of any process involving the transfer of tasks from person to person, especially since current and effective authorisation and empowerment processes have become confined within a unique character that does not deviate from its right or north.

Therefore, it is up to managers to recognise some of the foundations of good delegation and empowerment and how they can be employed within their institutions before they take this as a permanent business approach.

Here are the essential foundations and skills of authorisation and empowerment:

1- Find out which tasks to delegate

Not every task can be delegated, especially if your employees' skills are not commensurate with specific tasks assigned to you. You must study each employee's potential and skills and identify the right person for the right task. It is also okay to take constructive guidance in some situations to achieve the organisation's  goals and develop talent, thereby ensuring employee motivation and development.

2- Select the desired results

The use and assumption of an institution's leadership as an argument for placing tasks on the subordinate team are irrelevant to successful empowerment and delegation concepts.

Clarifying the work pattern of the employee responsible for accomplishing the task and motivating and guiding him while providing him with the necessary success measures and constructive guidance for specific errors made by him is precisely the principle of effective commissioning and delegation.

3- Provide the necessary resources and appropriate authority

As a worker leader and the person in charge of the enterprise, your powers and authority will be superior to the subordinate workers.

So if the Department's work on the tasks entrusted to the subordinate requires certain powers, powers and resources, you alone have the task of securing them.

4- Let it fail

This method, in particular, benefits ideals from managers who think they are the only ones capable of doing business with high quality and sometimes even avoid authorisation for that reason.

You must avoid being somewhat ideal when deciding on delegation and job empowerment. Allow failures and errors in the first phase of the delegation cycle because failure will hone your employees and teach them innovation and creativity in the coming stages.

5- Be patient

As the manager responsible for the entire workforce system, you have extensive knowledge and experience that makes you able to accomplish tasks in less time and with higher quality. This does not mean that you comply with the methods of comparing yourself with your employees, but you need to be wise and patient to build great leaders capable of succeeding you without your guidance.

6- Be careful with your communication.

Between your need to constantly monitor the work given to your employees, and your fear that their sense of responsibility will disappear, you will have a state of contradiction and confusion about how to communicate well and effectively with your employees.

So try to be a positive thinker when engaging and communicating with your employees so that you feel flexible in receiving their questions, queries, seriousness and packages in other areas.

Finally, 

Delegation is not as easy as the majority of managers think. Still, nevertheless, it is one of the skills that can be acquired and refined over time, especially if you are keen to attend specialised training courses in this area, such as Management and Leadership Courses in London.

The more you exercise the process of delegation and empowerment, and the better you align the appropriate tasks with the right people, the more satisfactory results are achieved, and the more fantastic fruits are reaped by delegating the workers under your hands.