Delegation and Empowerment

Delegation – the term stems from Latin and effectively means…
"to send on a mission or to give or commit duties, powers etc to another as an agent or representative."
Delegation is not just telling someone what to do.

• Your "delegates" must be able to act fully in your absence.
• This means letting them think and decide for themselves.
• Fully empower your delegates to act independently.
• Delegation is not abdication if you get regular feedback on results.
• Delegation is the downward transfer of formal authority from superior to subordinate.
• The employee is empowered to act for the supervisor, while the supervisor remains accountable for the outcome.
• Delegation of authority is a person-to-person relationship requiring trust, commitment, and contracting between the supervisor and the employee.
  

What to Delegate?

• Operational aspects of policy decisions.
• Repetitive work which consumes the manager’s time but which will enrich the member staff’s role and offer further development.
• Projects which are challenges to the job holder.
• Work requiring specific skills not currently possessed.
• Work than can be more economically done by the subordinate.
  

The Art of Delegation

Just giving someone tasks to do is not really delegation.
The challenge is to give clear direction but not too much.
Focus on the outcome expected (the deliverable) and time frame.
Be clear on the authority and limits you are delegating.
Is your delegate to decide just how to achieve a task or is there to be latitude on what and when?
What support does your delegate require?
What feedback do you require and how often?
How would you define a satisfactory outcome?

The Difference between Delegation and Empowerment

• Delegation refers to specific, one-off, decisions. It means letting someone else make decisions you normally make.
• Empowerment relates to larger scale culture change - it involves instituting a whole new way of working.

Barriers to Empowerment

• Empowerment may fail for any one of several reasons:
• The manager's fear of losing power.
• Pressure from the manager's boss to be on top of all details. Rationalisation that employees are not ready and fear of losing control.
• The feeling that "Only I can make the right decisions".
• Fear of having nothing to do...being redundant or having no purpose.
• Not accepting that subordinates are more knowledgeable or better placed to make some decisions.
• Lack of support from the organization's culture - demands for more centralized decision making.
• Preaching the value of making mistakes while still punishing them.
  

How to Empower People

• First, your culture has to adjust, then people have to be developed to overcome their fear of acting without your approval.
• Many employees are already more than able to take all the responsibility you can give them.Get people to realize how much power they have already - through their specialist skills and knowledge.
• The hardest part of empowerment is changing old habits - your willingness to let go and fearful employees to abandon their fears.
• Best to start small for those most unused to this new way of working.
• Trust takes time to build - regular feedback- both to the manager and to the empowered employee will build their confidence.