Delegation

Essay by BK65College, Undergraduate March 2008

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The underpinning of delegation is the people who utilize it. Delegation in of itself will not make a marginal employee a corporate superstar. Likewise, a manager who delegates but then micro-manages behind the scenes is a recipe for failure. When the management team delegates an important task to the associate, trust is shown in the employee’s overall abilities. While management seeks results, the team needs to allow a degree of autonomy to the employee on deciding how best to accomplish the assignment as long as they stay within approved company policies and guidelines.

Delegation involves shifting downstream responsibility for completion of work to other people. There are several reasons why one should delegate. Delegation is useful for the following: Once associates have learned how to work particular jobs, they can take ownership for the task thus allowing management team efforts to be utilized elsewhere. In developing people to look after routine tasks that are not cost-effective for a management team to carry out, it transfers work to people whose skills in a particular area are better thus saving time and money.

Transfer of responsibility develops the staff, and can increase their enjoyment of their jobs. The ideal position to reach as a manager is one where everyone on the staff can carry out all the routine activities of the team. This leaves a manager time to plan, think, and improve the efficiency of the company’s long and short term objectives.

For effective delegation the management team needs to decide what to delegate. One way of deciding is simply to list the things that management has done in the past that could be more effectively done by someone either more skilled in a particular area, or less expensive. Alternatively a manager may decide to use an activity log as the basis...