Posts Tagged ‘delegation’

If you are good at what you do and are the type of person who gets things done, sooner or later you will find yourself in the position where you have to manage others. While some make that shift from being the doer to the manager with easy, others find it a struggle.

So what actions could you take to become an even better manager?

Action 1: Be Honest With Yourself

It is really easy to fall into the trap of believing that because you are the manager you need to be the best at everything. The reality is you don’t and cannot be the best at everything. Stop pretending that you know it all.

Action 2: Invest Time To Save Time

One thing so many managers complain of is having too much to do and not enough time. However unlike a computer you cannot buy an upgrade in the amount of tome you have. So what’s the answer? Make a one off investment of time to train someone else and then assign responsibility for a task to them.

Action 3: Find Out What Motivates

On just about every management and leadership course I run people bring up motivation as an issue. When I ask them when was the last time they asked employees what motivates them, most acknowledge it was no time recently. If you don’t know what motivates others you are always going to find it a struggle.

Action 4: Don’t Avoid Problems

It might be tempting to avoid problems in the hope that they will somehow disappear into thin air. In reality this never happens. The problem just gets worse. Deal with them rather than letting them hang around like a bad odour.

Action 5: Show Trust

Trust takes time to gain and can be lost in minutes. Truth is the best way to gain trust is to show others you trust them.

Action 6: Never Forget What It Was Like At The Bottom

As people climb the career ladder it is easy to lose sight of what life was like when you were just starting out. Always try and stay connected to what it is really like at the bottom of the hierarchy when you had little or no experience.

Action 7: Delegate A Lot

Delegation is vital to your success and has many benefits in terms of developing and growing others. It also gives a huge message to others that you really trust them.

Action 8: Try Not To Criticise In Public

Yes this requires a lot of self discipline but when you criticise in public you run the risk of losing the respect of the individual and potentially your whole team.

Action 9: Praise and Acknowledge

When you praise someone it lets others know you are noticing and care about them. Remember too that you can acknowledge effort as well as results.

Action 10: Accept That It Is Ongoing Work In Progress

Despite what you might read you never reach the point where you are the perfect manager. You have to keep learning and growing in order to continue to deliver success.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps highly rated professionals to become high performing leaders and managers. He invites you to sign up for his free management mastery course

Ask any successful person what helped them to be a success and you will no doubt find them talking about the host of people who helped them along the way.

At some level we all understand that if we are going to achieve to anything like our true potential we are going to have to enlist the help of others and trust them. Despite this level of understanding, we still see managers not delegating effectively or at all.

So what might be stopping you from delegating as a manager?

It Will Be Quicker To Do It Myself

Okay let’s be totally honest, at this precise moment in time you probably could do it quicker yourself and maybe also for the next few times as well. On the other hand, doing the task that could easily be done by someone other than you is eating into your ultimate limiting factor called time.

Remember that showing someone else is a one time investment of time that pays back over and over again.

They Won’t Do It As Well As Me

Again, short term you might be absolutely right. On the other hand they might actually do it even better. Take technology as an example. People of a certain age were brought up with technology and often know more shortcuts than you.

They Will Do It Better Than Me

In this situation you might worry about looking incompetent or not up to the job. Looking at it differently however, the role of the manager is to focus on what they do best and to unlock the potential in others. If they can do it better than you, give it to them. It’s called good management.

They Will Let Me Down

Ask any manager and I bet they will be able to recount a time when they delegated something that all went wrong. On reflection they generally realise that there were a whole host of factors that contributed to the failing. Giving the message, “You will let me down”, is akin to saying to someone, “I don’t trust you”. Hardly a message you want to give or one your people want to hear.

I Will Look Incompetent

It is one of the biggest myths around that to be a successful manager you need to be brilliant at everything. Look at sports as an example. Many mediocre players go on to be great coaches or managers while many who are brilliant players then struggle. The thing to remember is that what you are judged on ultimately is your ability to deliver results through others and that’s what management is all about.


The Bottom Line: The most successful managers focus on their priorities and on being great managers. Don’t let your ego or self-doubt stop you from delegating and get the results you know you can deliver.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps professional people to become highly effective managers. He invites you to sign up for his free e-course, Management Mastery, at www.goalsandachievements.co.uk.

Every good manager and leader knows the results that they achieve are to a large extent influenced by their ability to bring out the best in others.

Despite this, many managers and leaders fail to delegate effectively. Why is this?

Excuse 1: It takes too long

• Let’s be honest, it does require an investment of time. The key thing to remember is that it is a one-off investment of time that pays back over and over again.

Excuse 2: They might mess up

• True, they might not do it perfectly. On the other hand, they are never going to get any better at it if you keep doing it. We can all watch someone else doing something but the real learning comes from having a go.

Excuse 3: They might do it better than me

• Yes, they might and, if this is the case, then it is proof that you should not be doing it in the first place. Take a spreadsheet as an example: the younger generation have been brought up with them. The chances are they can do that spreadsheet report better than you if you are of a certain age. Don’t try to stop them; use the asset at your disposal.

The truth is, delegating can be tough. At the same time, if you want to thrive and prosper as a leader or manager, you want to get highly effective in this area.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

As a manager or leader, trying to do it all alone is a recipe for disaster. So what are some signs to be alert to if you think you might be becoming the lone ranger?

1. A never ending To Do List.
2. Carrying more than your fair share of the workload.
3. Not delegating or empowering others.
4. Not communicating effectively or at all with your team.
5. Trying to do it all by yourself.
6. Not trusting anyone else.

What else would you add to the list?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

If you are a manager, you need to be ready and able to delegate. Why is this so important?

1. You have limited time available.
2. There is only one of you.
3. You will burn out if you try to do everything.
4. It helps develop and grow others.
5. You achieve more, faster.
6. You focus on what you do best.
7. You get others to focus on what they do best.
8. It builds trust.
9. You motivate others.
10. You build a great support team.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

Today is D Day.

D for me in terms of leadership success is about:

• Direction setting
• Determining the priorities
• Deciding, when you have many options
• Delegating effectively
• Delivering results

What else would you add?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

Most managers, leaders and staff have one thing in common. They all have a limited amount of time available to them. So what are 3 good reasons for managers to delegate?

Reason 1: You focus on what you should be doing

The alternative is spending lots of time on activities that you should not be doing and may be no-one should be doing.

Reason 2: You are free to take on new challenges

New challenges provide you with the opportunity to grow and develop new skills and gain new experience.

Reason 3: You give your staff the chance to develop

The staff that you manage generally want to grow and develop. By delegating tasks to them, you give them the opportunity to grow and develop.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

1. It takes too long to train someone else
2. I can do it quicker myself
3. I can’t trust someone else with such an important piece of work
4. Only I can do it
5. I don’t need to

What else would you add to the list?

1. It  takes too long
2. I can do it quicker myself
3. I tried in the past and it failed
4. I will lose control
5. I don’t trust my staff to deliver

What else would you add to the list of excuses?

In week 4 of The Apprentice, the teams were tasked with developing, producing and selling two natural beauty products.

The teams were mixed up again, with Noorul leading what turned out to be the winning team and Paula leading the losing team.  The big learning point from this week was that it is often the most basic of mistakes that can be the most costly.

So let’s compare both of the teams.  As a team leader, Noorul was clearly not leading and any time where a decision needed to be made he looked like a rabbit in the headlights.  There was absolutely nothing in the way of creativity and the product, particularly the soap was awful.  When it came to selling he just could not do it, despite the fact that in one of the clips he would rate himself 10 out 10 when it came to selling.  Yet despite all of this he and his team delivered a profit of just under £500.

Paula by contrast was a great team leader.  She took decisions, made things happen, a good example being the sale of the remaining stock as a single batch.  She was creative and pretty dynamic on the whole.  So what was the big mistake that was made?  Choosing a hugely expensive fragrance and not considering the financial consequences.

So what in summary are the leadership lessons can we learn form this week’s show?

1. A great product, with good marketing and selling is not enough
2. Crunching the numbers might be dull but essential to running any successful organisation
3. Delegation need to be clear and unambiguous
4. It is important to be self aware
5. When in a situation of conflict, choose your tactics wisely
6. Not being an expert in something is not a defence.  If you are the leader, the buck stops with you.

You can watch The Apprentice in the UK every Wednesday evening at 9pm or on the BBCiplayer