How good are you at delegating?

At a recent session we shared some recent research on delegation. In 2016 it was reported that only 30 percent of managers think they can delegate well, and of those, only 1 in 3 were considered to be a good delegator by their team members. This means that only about 1 in 10 managers are good delegators. This statistic didn’t surprise us as it’s one of the most common areas we address in coaching. What did surprise us was other research that found that there are gender differences in the willingness to delegate. Female leaders find it more difficult to delegate than their male colleagues; they have negative associations with delegating and feel greater guilt about delegating than men. As a result, females delegate less than males. However, there is good news. Reframing delegation as a social interactive task reduces negative associations. And we know that great delegation is a fantastic opportunity to work closely with someone to help them to grow and develop in their role, and in turn, this links to increased employee engagement. So, it is a win-win activity.

Do your managers need training or coaching on delegating well? If so, you may want to consider our Management Development Programme, more details can be found here.

Go on, look at your to do list and think about what you can delegate and what opportunities there are to enable others to shine!