As entrepreneurs and business leaders, you tend to want to control everything. After all, it is your vision you’re trying to bring to life! But the hard truth is attempting to manage every little detail on your own quickly leads to burnout. Learning about thoughtful delegation of tasks is essential for growth. So, here are signs it’s time to start letting go of control in your business and how to do it while maintaining quality and accountability.
Recognize the Signs That You’re Overextended
Before just handing off work to the first willing team member, make an honest assessment of your current bandwidth. Are you working excessive hours, including weekends, yet still falling behind? Do you constantly feel overwhelmed and in crisis mode? Are small details starting to slip through the cracks? These are clear signals it’s time to start delegating.
Map Out Your Company’s Processes
Part of effective and thoughtful delegation involves identifying responsibilities that align with other people’s strengths while freeing you up to lead from your unique zone of genius. But first, you need crystal clarity on what all of those different responsibilities are. Take time to map out the workflows, processes, and standard operating procedures across your business before trying to hand off tasks.
Know Where to Start
When you’re ready to begin delegating, prioritize the responsibilities that are either extremely time-consuming for you personally or fall far outside your wheelhouse in terms of skills and interests first. For most founders, this includes heavy admin work, financial tasks, legal filings, technical support, and other infrastructure roles that keep the trains running on time but don’t utilize your core talents.
Document Everything Thoroughly
You’ve probably gotten in the bad habit of keeping much critical knowledge about processes in your business locked away in your own head. Resist that urge from here forward! Clearly write out instructions for completing key tasks and institutionalize that knowledge within your company, not yourself. This thoughtful delegation allows new team members to ramp up faster.
Find the Right Person For the Job
Not all delegation is created equal. You want to match responsibilities to each team member’s authentic strengths and interests as much as possible so they’re energized to take ownership of that piece of the puzzle. Spend time getting to know new hires personally and review resumes closely to assess transferable skills when handing off work.
Set Clear Expectations Upfront
When initially passing off responsibilities, set very clear expectations around quality standards, deadlines, policies to follow, communication protocols, and anything else vital to that role. Establish measurable goals and key performance indicators for longer-term assignments as well so you can keep tabs on progress. Remove as much ambiguity as possible early on.
Check In Regularly
Once you’ve delegated tasks, don’t just disappear expecting finished work to eventually materialize unmonitored! Schedule regular check-in sessions to provide any additional context needed, answer questions, and monitor roadblocks. Show you’re invested in that person’s success in taking on the new responsibility.
Develop SOP Documentation
Rather than verbally tell someone once how to complete a complicated or multi-step recurring task, develop SOP (standard operating procedure) documentation they can reference as needed. Break down each step of the process, include screenshots as appropriate, and store everything digitally for easy access. Highly detailed SOPs mean less hand-holding required of you later.
Automate Where Possible
Dedicate time upfront to determine what responsibilities can be fully or partially automated with technology rather than assigned to human resources long-term, even if the platform costs some money. For example, snagging a virtual assistant to handle calendar management or using AI tools for content creation. Any established financial blog should help you find the right tools. This scales impact exponentially.
Start Small
When ready to start relinquishing control, begin slowly by delegating well-defined, relatively contained tasks rather than entire huge chunks of your business right away. This kind of thoughtful delegation minimizes risk exposure while you evaluate compatibility and capability. Increase the scope and ownership of assignments as your confidence and your employees’ skills grow.
Express Appreciation
Don’t just delegate work, then ignore those helping expand your company’s reach! Check-in often with both praise for jobs well handled and constructive feedback when expectations didn’t quite hit the mark. Recognize dedicated team members publicly for going above and beyond. Appreciation fuels engagement and retention.
Step Back Slowly
Even once you’ve delegated key tasks, it’s natural to feel hesitant to fully let go out of fear things won’t run smoothly without your direct involvement. Ease the transition by slowly decreasing check-ins and oversight touchpoints. Gradually back off support only as competence proves itself over time.
Wrap-up
Learning about thoughtful delegation of responsibilities won’t happen overnight after running solo for so long. But take it step by step, leveraging the strategies above, and soon you’ll lead a highly capable team able to exponentially increase results, freeing you up to focus on big-picture vision and growth.
