As a business owner and leader, you know how important delegating is to growing your business and team, but letting go of some of these responsibilities may feel daunting. You may be at the point where you’re prepared to delegate, but without a clear plan in place, you may end up feeling even more overwhelmed than before. Not only is it crucial to decide what and how you’ll delegate, but it’s equally important to develop an implementation strategy that both you and your team can be held accountable for.

Here are 5 steps to take to to ensure you’re prepared to delegate:

1) Reassess your own role and clarify your goals

The entire purpose of delegating tasks is to free up time and resources for you to work ON the business, not IN the business. You may be prepared to delegate, but do you know what your day-to-day responsibilities will be once these tasks are offloaded from your plate? It’s common for business owners to turn into “helicopter” managers that hover over their staff to ensure they get things done “right.” However, this a lose-lose situation for both you and your staff – it takes time and energy away that you could be spending growing your business, and, it shows your employees that you don’t trust them to do their jobs, which leads to a decrease in morale and motivation.

The key here is to clearly define what your role is going to be and what goals you want to achieve. Think about your strengths and skills, and then choose the ones that actually move your business forward. Outline where you want your business to be in 6 months, 1 year, 2-5 years, and then work backwards to create an action plan that you can begin to execute on a daily basis.

2) Identify which tasks to delegate

Not all tasks are suitable for delegation. Identify tasks that are time-consuming but that don’t necessarily require your unique expertise. These could include administrative duties, routine operations, client retention, and customer service functions. You might find, as you’re reviewing these tasks, that you lack a clear process or system that your staff can follow independently to successfully perform the task. You may even find that even with a process in place, you allow for too many exceptions that require your involvement. This is an opportunity for you to decide what you are and are not willing to systematize for the sake of delegation.

Deciding which tasks to delegate is closely tied to the role that you will have created for yourself in Step 1 above. You will certainly make adjustments later, but it’s important to be honest with yourself up front on which tasks you’re actually prepared to remove yourself from entirely.

3) Define what “good enough” will be for your team

The reality is, your employees will never perform tasks as well as you – if they did, they wouldn’t be working for you and would possibly have their own businesses. Once you accept this, you can then create a standard that is realistic for your staff and that doesn’t leave you disappointed every time.

The best way to go about this is to focus on function rather than perfection. Think about the result that needs to be created every time this task is performed. What metrics need to be satisfied? Is it enough to keep your clients happy? Will it keep your business running smoothly? Is it something your employees can do consistently with the right resources?

If so, then that’s the expectation that you’re going to hold your team accountable for completing, as well as to yourself when you’re monitoring their results. Remember, delegation only works when a task can be successfully performed repeatedly without your interference. Only when you have this benchmark clearly defined are you prepared to delegate.

4) Decide who you’ll delegate to and WHY

Understanding each of your employees’ unique strengths and capabilities is just as, if not more important to successful delegation as setting proper expectations for them. Not every employee is ready or willing to take on new tasks, especially if there’s no preparation or warning beforehand.

You may find it helpful to speak with each of your employees one-on-one to get a comprehensive understanding of what their current workload looks like and if they’re seeking opportunities to expand and take on new responsibilities. Not only does this ensure that your tasks get handled effectively, but it promotes employee engagement and professional growth.

5) Prepare the resources and support your staff will need to excel

This step goes hand-in-hand with Step 4 above, as your staff will likely provide you with feedback on what they feel is missing in order for them to take on more work. This might be more training, a clearly defined process, better technology, or even just an implementation plan and feedback channel.

There will be some initial speed bumps and pivots when you first begin delegating tasks, but you can prevent most of them if you provide your team with the support and guidance they need to perform these tasks successfully. Not only does this set them up for peak performance, but it removes you as a bottleneck and promotes autonomy and efficiency in your business.

In summary: You’re only prepared to delegate once you’ve defined what you will hold yourself and your staff accountable to.

Ultimately, reaching the point where you’re prepared to delegate comes down to understanding and accepting your own strengths as well as your team’s, and then developing a plan that capitalizes on both. Accountability and commitment are paramount to successful delegation, so as long as you maintain these from the beginning, you and your team will thrive.

“Where do I begin?”

If you’re struggling with these steps and want to learn more about how coaching can help, send me an email at [email protected] or click the button below to set up a call, and we’ll discuss how we can partner together to help you reach your goals.