Why is delegation important? Really?
You’ve likely heard it’s important for you to delegate, whether you are a manager or in some other leadership position, but beyond it being a buzzword, the question is why?
What difference does it make if you delegate versus if you don’t? How does it impact you as a leader and your team and organization?
Do you want the short answer or the long answer? I’ll give you both.
Short answer: The effectiveness (and growth) of your company and you as a leader depends on your ability to delegate.
Long answer: Let’s dive into it below:
First, what is delegation?
It’s important that we drill down on a definition of delegation to make sure we are on the same page.
Delegation (as I’m defining it), put simply, is this: Delegation is releasing authority and responsibility to other individuals over specific tasks, functions, or outcomes.
This can/does include decision-making in those areas, depending on the level and situation. You may start small and with specific tasks, but your goal is to grow people so they can own different functions, outcomes, and the decisions with them.
(Quick note: As a leader, you are still responsible for the outcomes. When I say you release responsibility, I mean the responsibility of doing it, and to a degree, the responsibility of making sure it’s done. However, ultimately, as the leader, you are still responsible.)
Second, let’s look at your job as a leader
What’s your job as a leader?
In a work environment, when you have a “regular” job, your job is to get things done yourself (alongside others at times). You are an individual performer.
Your job is to do the work and to get the results yourself.
However, as a leader, your job (in general) is not to get results yourself but to get results through others (yes, depending on your level of management, the position, etc., you still may do some work yourself, but generally, your job is to lead others into getting the results).
That’s one reason many people hurt or fail as a boss or manager: they get moved up into management, aren’t trained well, and/or don’t understand the difference, and they keep trying to perform themselves versus working through others.
As a leader in a work environment, it’s your job and responsibility to get work done through others.
So why is delegating important?
First, it’s the only way to grow a great company (and you limit your organization’s capacity (and your capacity to lead) when you don’t)
As an individual person, there is only so much work you can do.
Whether you are a small business owner, manager, or CEO, you only have 24 hours a day.
If you do everything, you limit the amount of work that can get done.
It’s by delegating and releasing authority to others over tasks, processes, or outcomes that more work can get done.
In fact, it’s been shown that a company cannot grow without delegation. Study after study has shown this.
For example, Mel Scott and Richard Bruce in their article discuss the 5 stages of business growth in a small business.
One of the key points in their report that I saw is that for a business to go to the next stage of growth, it has to have a higher level of delegation to get there. A business cannot grow if it doesn’t delegate.
That applies to businesses of any size. If there is no delegation, you limit the growth you can have. If want to grow your company, your capacity, or your organization, you must delegate.
Here are some other studies:
- Richard Cuba and Gene Milbourn Jr. in the abstract of their research study Delegating for Small Business Success, found that “The degree of delegation of administrative and technical tasks was determined to be a key factor affecting business survival and financial success.”
- Another study by Yong Wang and P. Poutziouris found that businesses, where owner-managers delegate authority, tend to operate more professionally and achieve higher sales growth.
- According to a study by Mohammad Kafaji, delegation increases employee engagement which increases business growth, and it’s more impactful than just encouraging employees to collaborate and share ideas (which does increase business growth, just to a lesser extent than delegation).
- (For more studies on this, Kapasuwan and Rose mention multiple studies related to the topic of the need to delegate for growth in their research article.)
For business owners (and really any leader), check out: Growth or Control? The Decision Every Business Owner Must Make
Delegation multiplies the results you can get individually
As a manager or executive, there are certain tasks and responsibilities that are most important for your position. They are your 80/20. They give you the greatest results. They are what you need to do as a leader.
However, when you spend time on tasks or focusing on outcomes that aren’t as important for you, that’s less time you have to focus on your most important tasks.
And it’s not just simple subtraction.
If your high-value work gives a 20 average impact per hour, and the low-value work only gives you an average of 4 impact an hour, you aren’t wasting 4 hours on a small task, you are losing 64 of the impact you could be getting (I realize the numbers are a little arbitrary, but I hope you get the idea).
Focusing on what’s most important for you multiplies the results you can get.
Delegation multiples the results your team and organization can get
When you focus on what’s most important to you in your role, on the high-value tasks for your position, and you help your team and those throughout your organization do the same, it multiplies their output as well.
Delegation isn’t just about helping you be more productive, it’s about maximizing the productivity of your team and entire organization. It helps you as the leader to get the highest return of investment on your organization’s investment of people. It’s using your people most effectively and putting their skills to use.
It increases the quantity and quality of results.
As John Maxwell said in The Ultimate Guide to Developing Leaders:
“Often, it’s quicker and easier to do a job yourself than to train someone else to do it. But that’s short-term thinking. The time you invest now will compound when well-equipped team members are working with you….”
Delegation develops your people
When you delegate effectively and intentionally, you are able to grow your team in their skills and capabilities.
It can give employees experience not only in the tasks they are doing but also in collaborating across departments, decision-making, problem-solving, and more.
This not only helps them in their future careers, but it helps your organization thrive even more as the years go on.
Delegation prepares future leaders for your organization (which prepares you for long-term success)
This is important because many businesses or teams fail because they were dependent on one or very few people, and when they leave, everything falls apart.
When you develop the leaders within your organization (and delegating responsibility and decision-making, etc. can be a big part of it), you are preparing individuals to step up when the time is needed.
It also makes your organization strong throughout. The success of any organization depends on the leadership throughout the organization, and by growing the leaders throughout, you are strengthening the entire organization.
When the lower-level leaders are weak or bad, it doesn’t matter how strong the top leadership is, those teams and departments will suffer.
For an organization to be effective, you need great leadership at all levels, and you want to have strong leaders ready to step up to the plate when there is a need.
Effective delegation helps develop your leaders for these purposes.
As Maxwell said, “If you’re not identifying the leaders of tomorrow whom you will develop, your potential and your future will always be limited.”
Effective delegation builds motivation (and can reduce turnover)
Autonomy is one of the big motivators humans have. No one likes to be micromanaged or to be told every detail of what they are to do.
Humans also like to grow and challenge themselves.
When you delegate effectively, you give these opportunities to your people, which can help build motivation in them.
And when people are motivated, it can reduce the turnover in your organization.
Dave Stitt in Deep And Deliberate Delegation said that without effective delegation:
“Talented and experienced managers burn out while those waiting in the wings get bored and disaffected or are swamped by spasmodic, ad hoc task dumping. These organizations are strangled by capability choke points and, from twenty years of organizational coaching, I can tell you that it is the norm not the exception.”
Effective delegation helps companies endure transitions well (and creates successful successions)
With effective and intentional delegation, you build up the capabilities and the potential leaders within your organization.
When there are leadership or other transitions, your people will be much more capable of weathering whatever happens because of the preparation you’ve given them.
Instead of everything falling apart, because it depended on one person, capable people are there to stand up, take the lead, and continue the work.
Delegation reduces bottlenecks
Too many businesses are held up because certain people, or certain leaders, are bottlenecks within the company.
They are the ones who make decisions. They are the ones to go through if you want x or y done. They are the ones who will “solve the problem.”
The problem is, when an employee always has to go through their manager (or whomever) to get a decision made, a process moving forward, or a problem solved, it reduces not only the morale and motivation of the people but also reduces the number of results you can get.
That person can only make so many decisions and solve so many problems in one day. Not only that, but having to do all that for everyone else keeps them from what is most important to them.
If you feel like you can’t trust your people, that you must control or do everything, that’s a leadership problem on you, not them. Learn to delegate, train, or, possibly, hire better.
If you want to keep that control so you feel important or needed, then you are putting your ego or insecurity over the success of your team or organization. That’s something you want to work on.
Being a bottleneck doesn’t do anyone any good.
Delegation lets your company or department run well without you
I’ve heard from various business owners that they can’t get away from their work. They are always needed, someone is always calling, and if they go away, then things may fall apart.
However, if you learn how to delegate effectively and grow your people to handle the different tasks and responsibilities, whether you are a business owner, CEO, or team leader, you then can step away knowing that things can and will function well without you.
Delegation shows trust and respect toward others
Delegation shows trust and respect toward others. Not delegating does the opposite.
Think about it: when you aren’t willing to delegate, you are telling them you don’t trust them and that you see them as incapable.
How do you think that affects morale and motivation? How likely are people to take ownership of their work when they feel that way?
When you do show that trust, not only does it help build morale, it helps build your influence as a leader as well.
You can use delegation to see who is ready for a promotion or to evaluate current capabilities
If you are looking to fill a certain position, you can use delegation to see who is able and capable to fill that position.
If you are filling a manager position, delegate to the person or persons you are considering responsibilities that contain some of the duties or responsibilities they will have as a manager.
This helps you know where they are at, but it also helps them know and gives them a chance to grow.
Even if they aren’t there yet, if they are humble and willing to learn, they will then work on those skills if they want that kind of position.
(I’m not advocating blindly throwing tasks or responsibilities at people to see if they succeed or fail with no support or help. However, as you go through the process of delegation, you can observe and gauge their needs and where they are at versus just thinking maybe they will be good at this or that or making someone a manager just because they were good at doing certain tasks that don’t necessarily have anything to do with management.).
Delegation leads to greater promotions and raises for you (and your employees)
It makes sense when you think about it. When you delegate effectively, you (and your team) are producing more and getting more results.
Greater results equal a greater chance for promotions and raises.
In fact, HBR talks about this possibility in their article here.
The opposite makes sense too: if you aren’t focusing on high-value tasks because you are doing everything, then it’s likely it will hurt your chance of getting a promotion or raise.
Delegation enables you to work on, not in, your company
If you are a business owner, you’ve likely heard the importance of working on and not in your company.
The problem is, if you don’t delegate, it’s kind of hard to do that.
And, as we mentioned toward the beginning of this article, the only way to really grow your company is by delegation.
So if you haven’t yet, start learning how to do it well soon.
Delegation can reduce stress and overwhelm
When you delegate well, you aren’t always chasing and putting out fires or trying to control or solve everything. You are focusing on what’s most important for you.
You may help others with problems they are facing, but you don’t take over for them. Instead, you are building the capability of people to solve problems.
You aren’t making every decision, but you are growing and training people to make effective decisions on their own in their areas.
You are less swamped, stressed, and overwhelmed because you aren’t trying to do all the work you shouldn’t be doing in the first place.
Delegation releases time for strategic thinking
As a leader in a position, especially the higher up in positions you go, a big part of what you do is strategic thinking.
The problem is, that many leaders say they don’t have time to strategically think because they are always too busy. They’re always fighting fires or trying to do all the work.
And a big reason they are too busy is that they aren’t delegating effectively.
As David Stitt said, “Suffice to say for now that delegation is essential if you’re ever going to have time to a) lift your eyes to the horizon and see the vision and strategy in the first place, and b) do the things only you can do to make the strategy work.”
Learn and practice effective delegation starting – now
As you can hopefully see, delegation is important for you as a leader and for your organization.
If you want to be successful, you must delegate.
To learn more about how to delegate, check out this article here: The Leader’s Guide to Delegation
Now to you: Do any of the reasons stick out to you? Do you have any others why it’s so important? Let me know below.
