Learn to balance your workload with delegation in 6 min

Did you recently transition into a management role?

Do you ever feel overwhelmed with work?

Perhaps it's time to delegate some tasks.

Delegation means assigning tasks or responsibilities to another person.

Delegating effectively has many benefits:

• Showing your trust in other team members.

• Giving others an opportunity to perform specific tasks or roles to improve their skills.

• Sharing your workload with other team members.

Most new managers face the inevitable challenge of reducing their involvement in daily tasks without losing their relevance .

Their success depends on how they use their wisdom to get people involved in tasks.

• Don't hold on to tasks you did as an individual contributor.

• Don't micromanage and try to do everything on your own.

Micromanaging is controlling every small detail of a task or situation.

• Guide those who work with you and inspire them to do their best.

• Share a perspective that others in the organization want to seek out.

• Make others care enough to take action and initiative.

Talk about how the delegated task fits in the overall project and how other tasks depend on it. Share the business need for the task and why it's important.

Communicate the scope of work clearly and give clear directions to complete the tasks.

Check back regularly and provide guidance when needed. Discuss and agree with the team members about what level of involvement works best.

Say "yes" only to tasks where you can contribute the most. Delegate ones that others in the team are skilled at and where your efforts and involvement don't add enough value.

Niam is an experienced technical writer. After his manager left the company, he was asked to lead a team with a mix of experienced and new members.

He quickly realized that his daily task list was unmanageable. He made a list and ranked the tasks by their importance, and by how much value he could add to the tasks.

The list looked like this:

1. Share skill development metrics for the team.

2. Plan weekly work for writers in the team.

3. Interview candidates for the growing team.

4. Coach new team members.

5. Review product manuals.

Delegating effectively will balance your workload and make you a better leader.

To become better at delegating: