Culture Community Recap: Delegating with Purpose to Empower Your Team with Clarity & Confidence
In this Culture Community webinar, organizational culture & trust expert, Steph Llano, IICDP, focuses on mastering the art of delegation. She offers valuable tips & strategies to empower leaders & teams to delegate more effectively while simultaneously building stronger connections to their direct reports & driving progress in the workplace. Below are a few of the highlights you can take into your own daily leadership!
What is Delegation After All?
Delegation is transferring responsibility for specific tasks from one person to another. When it’s done effectively, it leads to skill development, team empowerment, improved decision-making, & allows leaders to focus on high-level activities.
Finding What to Prioritize
For leaders that aren’t sure which items they should be delegating, Steph recommends working through the Purpose Quadrants exercise in Amy Jen Su’s book, “The Leader You Want to Be.” The exercise helps identify high contribution & high passion tasks, allowing leaders to strategically focus on their strengths & delegate tasks that don't align with their highest value or passion.
A Personal Mindset Shift
Steph shares her personal journey of embracing delegation, highlighting the importance of shifting from a "how" to a "who" mindset. In short, rather than thinking, “How can I possibly get all of this done!?” leaders should think about who on their team or among their colleagues are the best people for the task. By embracing this mindset, she was able to decrease the stress & overwhelm of thinking she needed to do everything herself, & enlist other innovative people to bring their ideas, perspectives, & problem-solving. She also highlights that just because a task is energy-draining for one person doesn’t mean other people dislike it as much as we might. In fact, it might be exactly the kind of task that they enjoy & hope to do more often!
Key mindset shifts also include recognizing that delegation makes you a great leader & that your team can often perform tasks better than you might.
3 Tips for Effective Delegation:
Play to Strengths:
Discover & leverage your team's strengths & goals through powerful, open-ended questions. Ask questions like, "What skills & experience do you currently have that we are not utilizing?" to uncover hidden talents & interests.
Set Expectations:
Clear & high expectations are crucial for successful delegation. Use this trifecta of questions to ensure clarity after you assign a task or initiative:
"What is one thing you're excited about?"
"What is one thing you're nervous or hesitant about?"
"What is one question you have?" \
Create a Feedback Loop:
Continuous feedback is essential to guide & support your team. Use the FBI (Feelings, Behavior, Impact) model to provide specific, non-judgmental feedback. This model is helpful to structure your feedback to start with the behavior that the person did, connect it to your own personal experience or feelings, & then communicate the impact the behavior had on you, your team, or the organization. It takes the message away from feeling personal & subjective & moves it into objective & actionable territory.
By implementing these straightforward strategies, leaders can create a more empowered, efficient, & motivated team, leading to greater organizational success & personal growth!
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