As a small business owner, you have endless responsibilities. This is why you need to learn delegation skills. Although it can seem impossible to let go, you must entrust your employees with tasks. 

What Does It Mean To Delegate Tasks?

When you chose to hire your employees, you did so because you thought they’d be a good fit for your team. After they’ve gone through their training, you’ve got to let them do what you hired them to do. 

You cannot be everywhere at once. Give tasks to others, so you can focus on managing your business. 

Managing vs. Micromanaging

Often, your business can feel like your baby. It’s easy to want to oversee everything and handle it all yourself. But it’s a slippery slope from managing to micromanaging.

Micromanaging

• You’re hyper-focused on the little things and lose sight of the big picture.
• You make your employees update you way too often.
• When an employee completes a task, you review it meticulously to ensure it’s done correctly.
• You struggle to teach employees how to do something because you’d rather do it yourself.
• You’re afraid something bad will happen if you don’t have a hand in it.

Managing

• You can see the big picture and assign tasks to employees to get the job done.
• You have scheduled meetings or updates at key checkpoints.
• You trust that your employees have done their job effectively.
• You enjoy teaching employees new things because it promotes healthy work culture, and you appreciate seeing them grow.
• You know your employees have what it takes to get the job done and done well.

How Do You Learn To Let Go?

For someone who is a natural micromanager, it can be hard to let go — especially the first time. If you feel you fit the micromanager description above or want to improve your overall managerial skills, follow the steps below.

1. Make a list of big picture projects or tasks that need to be completed.
2. Break that big picture into pieces.
3. Figure out which of your employees would best fit each task.
4. Assign them to those tasks.
5. Step away.

As you work on delegating tasks to others, it doesn’t mean that you’re sitting around doing nothing. It simply means that you will have more free time to manage and lead. 

Taking a step back can help you see your business more clearly. Sometimes when you are in too deep, it’s easy to get lost. Learning to let go can make a huge difference. 

What Are Some Delegation Strategies?

Now, let’s discuss the best ways to delegate work to your employees. Here are some key moves:

• Know your employees
• Set individual and team goals
• Provide proper guidance
• Implement a feedback process

Know Your Employees

Depending on your business size, it may or may not be possible to know all of your employees. You may know them all if you run a smaller-scale business. In this case, it’s important to familiarize yourself with your employees and their strengths.

You might not know all of your employees if you run a larger-scale business. However, you probably know many employees in managerial positions. In this case, you will focus on those employees and get to know their strengths so you can rely on them to lead their co-workers.

Understanding your employees’ strengths is a huge part of helping your business run smoothly. It will allow you to assign the right tasks to the right people. Set your team up for success and watch them grow. 

Set Individual and Team Goals

When employees know what you expect from them, they are more likely to work with a purpose. Again, depending on the size of your business, you might be able to set individual employee goals with each team member, or you might need to delegate goal setting to other managers. 

As a whole business, your goal should always be to follow your mission statement. That should be the guiding factor when creating goals for you and your employees.

When working with your team to create goals, give them some guidance and allow them to build one that is best for them. The best structure you can provide them with is the SMART goal concept, which will assist your team in creating a clear and attainable desired outcome. 

When your employees are involved in the decision-making process, even if it is just for themselves, it gives them a greater sense of agency. The goal-setting process will also allow you to get to know your team and what matters to them. 

Provide Proper Guidance

Earlier, we mentioned that one of the marks of an effective manager is the ability to teach your employees new things because it promotes a healthy work culture. Before you can appreciate seeing your employees grow, you need to provide them with the path to do so. 

When conducting a small business, it is important to have standard operating procedures to promote compliance and expectations. These operating procedures are also meant to guide onboarding, day-to-day, and safety tasks. 

When onboarding new employees, a good leader will guide them through each process. Give your team the tools they need to succeed. Once you have taught specific tasks, empower your team members by taking a step back and allowing them the space to practice their new skillset.

Implement A Feedback Process

This is the final step in upholding effective delegation skills. Remember, you don’t want to be micromanaging your employees; however, it is a good idea to implement a scheduled feedback process to monitor progress. 

This exercise promotes a routine opportunity for professional development. It also allows you to set up a type of check-in system for your team. 

During the process, you can provide them with: 

• Goal check-ins
• Performance reviews
• Constructive criticism
• Celebrate milestones
• Next steps and goals for the future

A feedback process is a best practice that allows for a healthy balance of structure and freedom. Employees can create their goals and understand their desired results. 

Your team is allowed the autonomy to complete their day-to-day work but understands that they must meet certain standards to promote business success.

Why Is It Important To Delegate Tasks When Managing Your Team?

Delegating tasks will ultimately help you:

• Save time
• Inspire and empower
• Practice management skills

If this sounds too good to be true, it’s not! Assigning tasks can change how you run your business and your employees see you.

Save Time

Will it take you time to set up systems of delegation? Yes. However, try not to be short-sighted. Although it will take time to figure out what works best for you, your business, and your employees, one of the biggest benefits of delegating is saving you time in the long run.

The goal for your business probably isn’t for it to have a short shelf life, so the way you run it shouldn’t be either. If you do everything yourself, it will cause burnout. Taking the time to delegate tasks to your team will promote your overall time management and allow space for more energy and longevity.

Practice Management Skills

You are the leader of your team. People look to you for action and answers.Studies showthat the top qualities of world leaders include:

• Strong ethics and safety
• Self-organizing
• Efficient learning
• Nurtures growth
• Connection and belonging

When you can delegate your tasks, you will have more than enough time to enhance these leadership qualities. The more of an effective leader you are, the more likely your employees are to work hard for your business. 

Inspire And Empower

Your team will look up to a strong leader who embodies the abovementioned ideals. They will see that you care about integrity, want to learn and teach, and care about your business and the people who make it possible. 

When you practice these characteristics, your employees are more likely to be inspired to take the same care in their work. Promoting this kind of work culture can eliminate employee burnout and promote retention. When people like where they work and who they work for, they’ll stick around.

Takeaways

With all of this new information, here are the five keys to remember: 

1. If you are a micromanager, admitting is the first step.
2. Let go of the tasks that don’t need to be yours. 
3. Delegate, delegate, delegate.
4. Know your employees, create goals, provide guidance, and check-in.
5. Creating a delegation process is good for your time, management skills, and employees.

As a small business owner, you’ve already come so far. Continue setting your business up for success by delegating tasks and effectively managing your team.

Visit Hoist for more tips on managing your small business.

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Sources:

6 Tips On Setting Expectations For Employees ⎸ Society For Human Resource Management

The Most Important Leadership Competencies, According to Leaders Around the World ⎸ Harvard Business Review

SMART Goals: A How to Guide ⎸ University of California