You can’t do everything yourself, no matter how good you are at your job. As a manager, you must delegate various tasks to your staff in order to do your job efficiently and effectively.

If you’re on a lateral lining job, you’re obviously not handling everything yourself. But you can’t be on the job site and in the office at the same time, so sometimes you have to delegate. If you don’t, you’ll be overworked and your staff will be underutilized. In fact, you do a disservice to your staff if you don’t delegate because it inhibits their ability to learn new things and grow as professionals.

Like all management activities, delegation must be done in a thoughtful and forward-thinking manner. To that end, consider the following tips when delegating tasks to your staff.

1. Clearly define what can and cannot be delegated

As a manager, be mindful of what should and should not be delegated. There are some tasks that your team members may not be qualified to perform, which is setting them up for failure. You don’t want to just randomly send one of your technicians out to do a job estimate if he or she has never had that responsibility.

Delegation is a powerful tool to maximize your team’s productivity, enhance their skill set, help them grow professionally and free you up to perform higher level tasks. All that said — make sure you are delegating the right tasks for the right reasons. Don’t just dump unwanted activities onto your staff to get them off your plate. Your team will eventually figure that out and it will hurt your credibility as a manager.

2. Create a prioritized delegation plan

Once you know what to delegate, your next step is to develop a plan outlining what tasks should be delegated to which staff member. When determining who gets which tasks, you should consider the following:

• Who is fully qualified to perform the task?
• Who could perform the task with proper instruction and mentoring with the goal of enhancing their skill set?
• Who should not be given the task because of their professional weaknesses and/or other attributes?
• Who deserves the task based on seniority, past performance and relevant considerations?

Delegating the right tasks to the right people is not always easy or popular, but if you do it with transparency, fairness, consistency and for the good of the company, your staff will learn to respect your decisions.

3. Provide clear instructions and define specific expectations

There is nothing worse than being delegated a task, not given instructions on how the task should be performed and what is expected, then working diligently to complete the task only to find out it isn’t what was wanted. Give specific instructions and clearly explain your expectations. This combination of instructions and expectations provides the correct delegation framework and establishes criteria as to how your employee will be judged when the task is completed.

4. Provide a safety net

When delegating tasks — particularly if it’s a new responsibility for the employee — as the manager, you must be willing to provide an appropriate level of management support to help ensure success.

Create a safety net of help and protection by:

• Providing the needed resources and training.
• Allowing time to properly perform the delegated tasks.
• Helping employees navigate company politics.
• Providing instructions on how tasks should be performed. 

5. Let go and allow people to do their work

If you delegate a task and then micromanage it to the extent that you have actually performed the task yourself, it’s not delegation. Neither should you totally divest yourself from the delegated task because, as the manager, you are still ultimately responsible for all work performed within your department. The trick is to walk that fine line between being overbearing and non-participatory.

6. Be mentoring and instructive

This step provides direct instruction and advice to the person performing a specific delegated task. This type of task-based instruction provides an environment where employees can learn how to perform a specific task or deal with a specific situation.

The level of instruction and advice to be provided should be based on the combination of the person’s specific experience and the task difficulty and importance.

7. Give credit to those doing the work

As a manager, you should adhere to the philosophy of “it’s the team’s success or my failure.” This philosophy causes you to raise the visibility of your staff’s good work within the organization, which motivates them and helps instill loyalty toward you. This approach also helps remind you that you are ultimately responsible for both your team’s growth and your department’s productivity and performance.

8. Actively solicit feedback from your team

Asking the members of your team if they believe you have delegated the right tasks to the right people has the following advantages:

• Helps you grow as a manager by learning how you are perceived as a manager.
• Helps improve your team’s performance by providing you with insights on better ways to delegate and support your staff.
• Shows your staff that you are willing to accept their suggestions, making you more approachable as a manager.

For those not comfortable delegating tasks to others, be willing to go outside your comfort zone. Your willingness to take this leap will enhance your department’s productivity, enhance your managerial ability, and help your team expand their knowledge and skill.