by Cathy Linton

Created on: May 28, 2007   Last Updated: June 13, 2009

Learning how to delegate means learning how to hand over some of the tasks that you undertake to other people who will do them in your place. Being a good manager or supervisor is largely about knowing how to delegate work. Many supervisors and particularly business owners don't know how to delegate work and learning how to delegate responsibility can take a lot of practice and patience, no matter what type of work it is you are delegating.

Some small business owners are afraid to let go of a particular task and delegate it for fear of the outcome. Delegation is difficult for most small business owners but no matter how big our business gets and how many employees we have, most of us started out as a one or two person business and we are used to running all of our own show.

Why Delegate?

No matter at what stage of development your business is, you don't have to perform all of the necessary tasks yourself. There is no question that delegation is a skill that is critical to any business' success and a healthy work/life balance. Even a one person business can get so busy that there is no way that a single person can do all that needs to be done. Andrew Carnegie said, "No person will make a great business who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit."

Sometimes delegating tasks in your personal life makes more sense financially and personally than delegating a particular business task. For example, where a couple are running a small business together it might make sense to employ someone to do the household chores to free up more time to work on the business.

How to Delegate

First you need to decide what tasks to delegate. One way of deciding this is simply to list the things that you do which could be as effectively done by someone else. It is important to select capable, willing people to carry out jobs and never take back a delegated task because you think you can do it better or faster yourself. Once you have delegated a task, let your assistant get on with it. Avoid thinking that it is too much trouble to delegate responsibility and accept that even if the task needs to be done over again, delegating will pay off over time.

You have to be very clear about what you need to be done and how you want it done if the delegation going to be successful and once the task has been completed to your satisfaction, let them know. A little praise can go a long way.

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