Management

Delegation technique
Delegating is a skill which involves many responsibilities and a manager cannot delegate tasks by simply telling the subordinates what they should do. Effective delegation process includes seven steps:
1) Identification of outcome agreed with the “delegatee”
2) Determining standards and guidelines for the job
3) Identification of resources
4) Setting rewards and possible consequences of the delegated responsibility
5) Allowing the “delegatee” a certain amount of time for practicing
6) After practice, delegating the whole task to the “delegatee”
7) Monitoring the process (and correcting the deviations, if they appear).
The manager should realize that delegation is an agreement between two parties: the manager himself and the “delegatee”. Moreover, it is possible to increase motivation and performance of personnel using delegation, so managers should practice this seven-step process to reach effective delegation.
Slide 10

Evaluation of delegation skills
Managers can assess own delegation skills by reviewing their activities related to sharing responsibility and work tasks according to six capstones of delegation (Daft & Marcic, 2010):
 Delegating the whole task
 Selecting the right people for the task
 Aligning responsibility and authority
 Preparing detailed instructions for the task
 Maintaining feedback of the employees
 Evaluating the results of the tasks and rewarding performance
A successful manager should combine all these skills in order to delegate tasks and reward employees in an effective way. Managers can evaluate own skill of delegation with regard to each of these milestones using a scale between 1 and 5 to mark their ability to delegate. Overall score can range from 6 to 30. It can be stated that a manager has mastered the skill of delegation if he or she has scored from 27 to 30 points. Thus, the managers should set a goal of improving their delegation skills and perform periodic reviews of own ability to delegate tasks in order to become really effective leaders.

References
Daft, R.L. & Marcic, D. (2010). Understanding Management. Cengage Learning.
Montana, P.J. & Charnov, B.H. (2008). Management. Barron’s Educational Series.
Rees, D.W. & Porter, C. (2008). The skills of management. Cengage Learning EMEA.
Witmer, N. (2009). I Get It!: Fundamentals. Dog Ear Publishing.