The Ultimate Guide to Effective Delegation

Effective delegation is a show of strength, not weakness, as it empowers your entire team

Three qualities separate true leaders from the pack: their ability to focus on strengths, serve as a role model and earn the trust of team members, based on demonstrated integrity. These qualities are exemplified by leaders’ ability to properly delegate — the act of assigning responsibility and authority to others with the goal of a clearly defined and agreed upon task being brought to successful, cooperative completion.

Why delegation is important

Through delegation, leaders empower their team to achieve development goals faster, more efficiently and without exhausting the efforts and resources of any single being. Delegation allows the team leader or manager to enjoy greater freedom to engage in other, sometimes more important or pressing tasks, while still overseeing and retaining responsibility for the delegated task’s results.

Effective delegation is good for you, your teammates and your entire organization. And yet, only 1 manager in 10 really knows how to empower through delegation. The others tend to fall into one of two categories. Either they delegate poorly, leaving one-line email instructions for their teammates as they head out of the office, or assigning tasks to “yes men” poorly equipped to complete the job. Or, they avoid delegating at all, claiming they don’t know what to delegate, it’s easier to do it themselves, they fear their teammates are already overloaded with work, etc.

Understanding the practical benefits of delegation can help transform those excuses into enthusiasm and the adoption of this highly effective leadership practice.

5 main benefits of delegation

1. You get to train and develop your team

Through delegation, you identify your team members’ strengths and nurture them. You also learn their weaknesses and empower them to learn, grow and improve by teaching them new skills.

2. You establish a culture of trust

By charging your teammates with important tasks, you are showing them that you trust them to successfully complete them. This promotes a sense of trust in you as a leader/manager, while also enhances the teammate or employee’s self-worth, perceived self-efficacy and job satisfaction.

3. You free up time to engage in other tasks

As a team leader or manager, you have many tasks to complete at any given time. Delegation increases the time you have available for brainstorming, strategic planning and development implementation. It also ensures work will still be completed should you be called away to another task.

4. You boost your team’s performance

Delegation moves tasks around between team members, allowing for greater flexibility. It also makes better use of everyone’s time — so the time each teammate spends on the delegated task is optimized for maximum performance and maximum results. Which, of course, means that you get to solve more problems.

5. You align all activities to match core values

When you delegate, you have a hand in all organizational activities, which means you can ensure that the organization’s core values are upheld in every project. Not only does this help promote your organization’s reputation, but it also helps all team members remember what your organization stands for, and why.

How to effectively delegate

The art of effective delegation is as easy as 1, 2, 3:

Think about the tasks on your to-do list, which ones you want to complete on your own and which to delegate. Plan how you will go about delegating the tasks. Match specific team members to specific tasks, create timelines for task completion and collect all necessary information they will need to succeed. Communicate your needs. Be sure to explain exactly what your expectations are, calmly and thoroughly. Do not rush or wait until the last minute.

Applying delegation in Matchpool

Managing a pool can be a demanding task for just a single admin. Knowing this, Matchpool has released the Deputizing Admins feature, which allows pool owners to grant managerial privileges to ordinary pool members. By deputizing pool members, owners can delegate matchmaking tasks, chat moderation and minimize the burden of management responsibilities for their pool. Below is a guide to delegating administrative privileges in your pool.

Requirement checklist

Become the owner of a Matchpool pool.

Have at least 1 pool member in your pool.

Once you have met the above requirements, you can get started!

Select the pool you would like to start deputizing admins in. Enter the Pools homepage and navigate over to the “members” tab. Here, you will see a list of active members, as well as a list of pending member requests.

Select “Members” to navigate to the list of pool members

2. Underneath each member’s profile summary, you will see a “Promote” button. Clicking this button will promote the selected user within your pool and grant them administrative privileges.

Note: Be sure to only promote users that you trust!

3. Once you have chosen a member to promote, you can open a private chat and assign them a task.

Through delegation, admins can efficiently manage their pool and dramatically grow their communities. With Matchpool’s latest feature addition, pool owners can grant administrative privileges to ordinary members, allowing for more effective pool management and a more pleasurable experience for all users.

Bottom line

Effective delegation strengthens organizational activities and benefits all members involved. Knowing this, Matchpool recently added a new feature to its pool activities — the Deputize Admins feature. This feature enables pool managers to delegate selected pool activities to other members, enabling a more efficient and productive user experience to be enjoyed by all.

For more information, visit www.matchpool.com.