Whether you are new to management or experienced knowing how to delegate is a key skill and essential to your success as a manager.

Were you ever taught how to delegate?

Chances are that you were never taught how to delegate. You can spend years doing an MBA and never get a single module on this critical subject.

But if you think about it, to be good at management you have to be good at delegating. But it’s not as simple as you would imagine.

There are many books written on the subject but they are only true some of the time. When it comes to delegating, pretty much everything you have been taught is only true some of the time.

How to delegate badly

I thought we would first look at how to do it badly. Have you ever been on the receiving end of bad delegation? What was it like for you? How did you feel?

There are two diverging schools of bad delegation and you may belong to one or the other.

The first school of how to delegate tends towards abdication. This is where the manager has a quick chat with you, provides some vague idea as to what they want and then leaves you to it.

The other school of delegation gives you all the details, including how to do each step and then tends to hover over your shoulder. It’s delegation in name only.

It’s fair enough to say that neither school is the right approach but this probably isn’t news to you.

What may be news to you is that there is another dimension that no one is talking about and that only a handful of extremely good managers are aware of.

A new dimension on how to delegate

There are two facts you need to be aware of;

1) Your personality largely determines your natural delegation style.

2) Great managers take into account the personality of the person they are delegating to and adjust their delegation style to suit.

So how can PeopleMaps help you delegate more effectively?

In the PeopleMaps Manager Library you will find a topic called “How to Delegate“. This topic is written to help managers delegate more effectively.

Have your staff member complete the personality questionnaire and then build a report using this topic. The topic explains the most effective way to delegate to the specific staff member. You see what works for one, will not work for another. This is why what you have been taught about delegating is only true some of the time.

The topic is specific to the individual staff member that completed the questionnaire and it explains in detail the most effective way to delegate to that staff member.

It will tell you if you should provide the instructions in writing and if verbal delegation is insufficient. It will explain how much detail the staff member requires and what would be considered too much interference.

You will discover how to be kept in the loop without damaging the relationship or interfering.

If you want to be an excellent manager then you need to know how to delegate and this personality topic will tell you exactly how to do just that..