As the manager it is your responsibility to accomplish the organization’s objectives; but you can’t accomplish all objectives by yourself, so you should delegate all or some of the tasks to the individuals; so it’s important to know how to handle a task forward to your subordinates and know what the management by delegation is.
What is the management by delegation?
According to the business dictionary delegation is “Sharing or transfer of authority and the associated responsibility, from an employer or superior (who has the right to delegate) to an employee or subordinate”.
Therefore the management by delegation is the style of management that involves giving the people who work with your parts of your authority and the responsibility to accomplish a specific task or job.
So, to delegate, you need to have the power or the authority to be able to transfer the parts of your authority to another person; delegation is one direction process because you can’t delegate a job or task to someone above you or has a position of authority higher than yours.
Keep in your mind that: delegation doesn’t mean that you won’t be responsible, but as the manager, you are responsible for the outcomes, so you should choose the right one who will be delegated, and should mentor and support him.
Management by Delegation levels:
The delegation isn’t just telling someone to do something, but the delegation has a wide range, you may transfer the whole authority to someone, and sometimes transfer a small part of your authority to another person depending on (the delegator, delegated job and person, situation and the delegation time) as following:
- The delegator: some managers have a negative attitude toward the delegation, and others have a positive attitude toward delegating the people.
- The delegated job: maybe a sensitive or secret job.
- The delegated person: may doesn’t have the efficiency to accomplish the task, may doesn’t feel comfortable with the delegated authority, or may the manager isn’t confident in the delegated person’s abilities,
- Situation and the delegation time: sometimes the situation or the time isn’t suitable to delegate anyone such as the emergency situations.
Delegation levels
So the delegation has many levels as follows: the first level is the lowest level of delegation and the last one is the highest level.
- “Told me before taking any action” or “do exactly these instructions”
At this level, the individual doesn’t have any freedom and follows the manager’s instructions.
- “Tell me the current situation. I’ll tell you what you will do”
At this level, the manager delegates the individual to analyze and assess the current situation. But doesn’t delegate him to take decisions.
- “Tell me the current situation. and we will decide together what you will do”
This level has a subtle difference from the second level because in this level analyzing and assessing the current situation are delegated but taking a decision is shared between the manager and the individual.
- “Tell me the current situation and what you need to analyze and assess the current situation. And we will decide together what you will do”
At this level, the individual has more freedom space to analyze and assess the current situation
- “ analyze and assess the situation and tell me your recommendations, then I will tell you to go ahead or not”
At this level, the manager wants to check the efficiency before taking a decision.
- “analyze and assess the current situation and make a decision, but don’t go ahead till I tell you”
The manager is confident in the person, but he won’t keep control of timing, maybe the task is important, or may the manager expects to change some factors.
- “analyze and assess the current situation, decide and go ahead, then inform me what happened”
You give the individual more freedom, but you want to be sure that everything is ok.
- “decide and go ahead and don’t check back with me”
By this level, you are confident in the individual’s efficiency. So you are sure that everything is ok with the person.
- “Decide where the action is needed to be taken”
At this level, the individual has more and more freedom. So you give him all of your trust.
