Effective delegation is a balancing act and a difficult one at that. So many professionals throughout their career stages struggle to navigate the ownership of projects and teams without taking over those projects or teams.

It’s an understandable tug-of-war, yet one that can be overcome through time, practice and the patient willingness to simply try some new things.

These delegation best practices deploy both social and organizational psychology to help you distribute work among your team more effectively — plus instill more significant project management and process improvements along the way.

What Is Delegation and Why Is It Important?

Delegation in the workplace is the process of communicating assignments for someone else to complete a defined task, project or workflow.

Delegation occurs in every workplace, on every corner of this earth. From the private to the public sector, whenever there are groups of people working on collaborative endeavors, there will be some form of delegation occurring to streamline schedules and harmonize workloads.

Why is it important to refine your delegation skills and become a more effective delegator? For reasons aligned with the above definition — communicating assignments and explaining tasks is inevitable in your professional life. Yet the interpersonal dynamics employed while delegating are not so straightforward. When done well, you empower your team to perform at their best while also feeling their best. When done poorly, things aren’t so pretty.

Effective delegation manages to check all the following organizational, behavioral, social and psychological boxes:

• Builds trust between participants
• Clarifies roles and responsibilities
• Efficiently structures teams and workload
• Decreases instances of office conflicts and “office politics”
• Improves the delegator’s leadership skills
• Enhances the direct report’s work experiences and acumen
• Creates superior project outputs

Benefits of Practicing Delegation Techniques

If you improve your business’s delegation best practices, you can reap the following benefits:

1. Honor Everyone’s Time

Effective delegation trims down meeting times, shortens emails, keeps video and conference calls on track and loops in only relevant personnel as needed. Those who practice it curate far more efficient communication environments, which, in turn, respects employees’ time.

You’d be hard pressed to find a person today who doesn’t consider time one of their most valuable resources. More effective delegation in any venue honors this, communicating with clarity, brevity and purpose.

2. Reduce Micromanaging

Micromanaging is one of the most common poor managerial traits experienced by employees.

These “helicopter” bosses, as some call them, micromanage for many reasons. Some are stuck in the mindset that for something to be done right, they must do it themselves. Others may be new to their managerial status and unaware that they’re micromanaging at all. Still others exhibit micromanagement behaviors for less benevolent reasons, distrusting their employees’ talents and time management, prioritizing only their ideas or looking for ways to take credit for others’ work.

In any case, successful delegation gives direct reports the tools and information they need to get work done — then leaves them alone to do it.

3. Decrease Conflicts

Good delegation provides all the necessary information and details pertaining to a specific task or project. What’s more, it establishes project benchmarks and assures expectations are aligned from the get-go, without curveballs or confusion.

As a result, teams experience fewer instances of internal and external conflict as they struggle to fill in the process gaps left by their manager. Everyone understands what they’re supposed to achieve within a set task and when they’re supposed to achieve it by — alleviating frictional process limbos.

4. Uphold Employee Engagement

Good delegation actually encourages and empowers employee buy-in.

Research shows supervisors who entrust regular, outcome-oriented or value-additive work to their employees increase the likelihood of that work’s superiority. What’s more, giving direct reports meaningful work is a leading way to help mentor employees, nurturing their skillsets, playing up their natural strengths and helping them feel indispensable.

5. Maintain the Organizational Architecture

Effective delegation maintains communication workflows complementary to the overall org structure. It allows employees to know where to go with what problem or question, whom to talk to and how to most effectively initiate that conversation.

Contrary to what many assume, employees crave this kind of set organizational structure. Why?

• Horizontal and vertical hierarchies help employees form a sense of workplace identity.
• Organizational architecture creates clear advancement opportunities or progression pathways within the company.
• Organizational charts establish individual, team and departmental interrelations.
• Organizational architecture reduces process and procedural ambiguity.

6. Get More Done

Effective manager-employee delegation has been shown to produce a 70% variance between high and low office engagement. In other words, the more high-functioning and task-based interactions between a manager and her team are, the happier her employees will be.

This is important because workplace satisfaction is causally linked to workday productivity, efficiency and even company profitability — all because team leaders know how to catalyze real people for real performance.

Tips on How to Delegate Effectively

Follow these written and verbal delegating best practices to increase your own managerial savvy, plus foster a healthier, happier and more productive work environment.

1. Give Employees Some Say

While delegation implies a one-way allotment of work to your direct reports, grant those direct reports a say in how work gets delegated. In particular, ask your employees:

• When it’s best to receive delegated action items: At the beginning of the week, during one-on-one weekly check-ins or perhaps sent in an ad-hoc fashion over email or chat for them to prioritize accordingly.
• How to receive delegations: Via email, face-to-face or even an evergreen collaborative to-do document, like a Google Doc.
• Work assignments where they particularly thrive: Increasing their motivation and the likelihood of high-value results.

While tailoring delegation schedules to the individual creates a little more frontloaded work for managers, it saves more time downstream when that work is done promptly and positively.

2. Follow the Four D’s

The success of delegation in project management — indeed, the success of any good communication in the workplace — will hinge on if you’ve clearly relayed the Four D’s for every project, workflow or task you assign.

Clearly and explicitly include the following every time you delegate work:

• The duty: What is the task to get done? What is its value-adding impact? Example: “Would you please update this spreadsheet with last month’s team expense reports? I’ll be using these figures for next week’s budget allocation pitch.”
• The deliverable: What do you need the direct report to produce? Examples include a slide deck, a summary or a video script.
• The details: What are the necessary, relevant but specific details required to complete the duty satisfactorily? For example, documents, presentations, websites, subject matter experts or similar contacts you suggest reaching out to.
• The deadline: When do you need the deliverable? How would you like it shared? Example: “I’d love to have this emailed to me by end-of-day Friday.”

Be as specific as possible without going down an informational rabbit hole.

3. Cut to the Email Chase

Effective delegation spans over to email communications, as well. The average employee today will spend 28% of their workweek reading and answering emails. That’s about 2.6 hours every workday. In the spirit of honoring their time and delegating more effectively, practice these email delegation techniques:

• Relay the duty and deliverable in the email’s opening sentence.
• Then provide two or three sentences to provide context and essential details.
• Close with a deadline confirmation.
• That’s it!

Example: “Could you please draft next month’s social media content calendar? I’m thinking three posts a week, for both Facebook and Twitter, plus accompanying images. Attached is the template and style guide Dave used last month, for reference. Can you send this back to me for review by EoD next Monday?”

Following this formula, a successful task-delegating email provides clear expectations, gets to the point and sets the direct report up to jump right into the job.

4. Use More Intentional Phrasing

How you delegate is just as important, if not more, than what you delegate.

Use warm, human language. Ask specific questions to garner the direct report’s confirmation or input. Be friendly but succinct, and don’t be afraid to show some personality! Humor, empathy and even the occasional emoji goes a long way.

Try these hacks for starters:

• Replace “can” and “will” with “could you please” and “would you.” This tiny swap perfectly balances the considerate but directive tone at the heart of effective delegation.
• Use “we” language whenever possible. You’ll sharpen the sense of camaraderie and collaboration involved in all work.
• Indicate your willingness to help if problems arise. Showcase your full support by adding things like, “If you have questions or something gets in the way of this, stop by my office ASAP so we can review it.” This permits an employee to ask questions or seek assistance and not feel guilty while also telling them how to do so (“stop by my office”), eliminating additional uncertainty.
• Say “thank you.” Whenever you delegate a task or project, close your verbal conversation or written notes by thanking your team member for their work and help. Genuine appreciation and acknowledgment can help build a solid, caring team that truly respects one another for the work they accomplish each day.

5. Establish Touchpoints When You Assign Work

Agree to scheduled check-ins with your direct report as early as possible. Establishing these mutually-convenient touchpoints is especially crucial for long-term projects split into multiple phases. Plus, it reduces two of the cardinal sins supervisors make — micromanaging and ghosting, that is, delegating work to someone then disappearing off the face of the office.

Allow the employee to pick the times for your touchpoints from a list you provide. As an added best practice, try to avoid unannounced check-ins or “stopping by” their desk for even brief updates.

6. Be a Team Player

Praise your team demonstratively. Be their biggest cheerleader, lauding both work accomplishments as well as admirable traits you witness team members display. As the saying goes, you catch more bees with honey than vinegar.

More importantly, refrain from blaming or finger-pointing at all costs. Even if a project’s failure was explicitly the fault of one person, nothing good comes from public admonishment. Replace outright criticism with a private debrief, allowing the employee to explain what happened and then letting them reflect on process improvements for next time.

7. Delegate the Right Work to the Right People

Conventional management wisdom says to send work where it can most successfully be accomplished using the lowest-level personnel. In the web of some organization’s structures, this could mean delegating work to your direct report’s direct reports, bypassing middle management altogether.

Instead, use this as an opportunity to empower your own team members to do their own delegation. Send them the task and resources, then ask they pick someone to take the project lead.

This accomplishes a few things. First, you display trust in your direct report’s competency. Second, you provide a small, albeit powerful, way for them to exercise their own delegation skills. Third, you forge a better relationship with that direct hire, empowering further agency and collaboration.

8. Assign Work According to Strengths

One of the fundamental priorities of a manager should be identifying and nurturing their team’s talents. Delegating work assignments according to observed strengths is a leading way to elicit higher-quality work outputs, plus relay confidence that your direct report is just the person to get the job done. You foster a relationship-driven leadership style — and get peace of mind the job is in the right hands, too,

9. Offer Feedback

Round out the delegation process by providing feedback on project end-results, especially early in your delegation days or when working with a new direct hire. Try to maintain a healthy balance between quantitative feedback — “That ad you created increased our leads by 25%.” — and qualitative feedback — “You spent a lot of time preparing that slide deck for yesterday’s finance meeting. Keeping one chart per slide would help showcase your findings a bit more for next time.” This keeps feedback grounded in the objective, preventing misunderstandings or feelings of personal slights.

Stick with feedback that’s pertinent to the Four D’s — duty, deliverable, details and deadline. Ensure the advice you’re giving is functional and task-relevant, backed by measurable insights, if possible.

After a while, you won’t necessarily need to give regular feedback or constructive opinions on someone’s work. Fold feedback into predetermined one-on-one meetings or as part of a longer scheduled review.

10. Say Thank You

Sure, you may have a superior title or ranking position. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t say thank you each and every time you make a delegation request, especially to those you work closest with.

Saying thank you is a leadership trait and valuable workplace skill that’s still all-too-forgotten. Strengthen your character and stand out in your workplace for all the right reasons by continually dropping these two powerful words — and even finding creative ways to do so.

11. Delegate Consistently

Delegate smoothly and consistently, often as a daily, not ad-hoc practice that aims to move and manage projects through various workflows. Delegation can sometimes be mistaken as a way to get to-do items off your list. It can also be used when particularly unenjoyable or unpleasant activities land on your desk, perhaps even delegated from your own boss.

Take care never to delegate tasks simply because it’s something you don’t want to do. This is a one-way, first-class ticket to losing your team’s respect.

12. Clarity Above All

When it comes to business delegation best practices in project management — and general workplace interactions — clarity reigns supreme.

Be clear and precise in your directions. Add only the details necessary for a task’s satisfactory completion. Say when you’ll loop back to check on the work, if necessary, and when you expect the project to be done. Be warm but succinct. Follow this formula, and you’ll already be well on your way to practicing more refined delegation best techniques.

Learn How to Be a More Confident, Proficient Delegator and Project Manager

There are more resources than ever to hone your delegation best practices — and inspire better project management within your team and your organization.

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