Leader-managers face the question, “should I delegate this?” daily. Whether it be a simple task, work project or request from the top, leader-managers must decide what tasks they can accomplish and which need to be delegated. At its core delegation is shifting work from one colleague to another, often downhill. It sounds simple but leader-managers know this can be a difficult skill to master. If you’re a leader-manager, you’ve likely received coaching, feedback or direct evaluation on your delegation skills and the need to transfer more work to others. In busy organizations, leader-managers are often left juggling multiple balls and, in order to keep the work of their team manageable, they “suck it up” and perform most new tasks themselves. Figuring out what tasks to delegate and what to keep close can be challenging while in the trenches of management. Without a clear FILTER TOOL to evaluate inbound tasks, the natural leader-manager reaction is to suck it up and do it yourself. The long-term impact of this instinctive reaction is not great for either the leader or the team. Poorly delegated teams often don’t gain the necessary experience and exposure to tasks required to ready them for next level roles. Over-worked leader-managers are at risk of burnout and are less likely to receive a positive evaluation from both their leaders and team members. The Delegation Filter helps leader-managers critically evaluate the value of performing certain tasks while at the same time assigning tasks that can be better done elsewhere. The Filter evaluates tasks using 5 key criteria (L-SORT) on a 5 point scale. If the total combined score equals less than 10, leader-managers should delegate the task and if the score is over 15 than the leader-manager can complete the task themselves.
These are the 5 key criteria:
- Level – does this task fit within the level of leadership I should be working in?
- Strengths – Does this fit within my strengths? Am I good at this? Am I the best at it?
- Opportunity – Does this provide me an opportunity for growth? Either to learn something new or interact with another part of the business that would be important for future success.
- Responsibility – Does this fall with the outlined responsibilities of my role?
- Time – Will it be quicker for me to perform this than to delegate and teach others?
