Delegation of powers. How to delegate authority correctly?

Definition

Delegation manifests itself as an equal division of rights and obligations between the subjects of the system. Its principles were formulated at the beginning of the twentieth century by P. M. Kerzhentsev.

Delegation is the provision of authority to perform tasks to an accountable person while at the same time holding him responsible for the result obtained. Delegation allows for the proper distribution of tasks among employees and is used in achieving the ultimate goals of the organization.

Responsibility is the employee's obligation to do the assigned work efficiently and to bring it to a satisfactory completion. Employees are responsible in the area of ​​their activities to their superiors.

Powers (authorities) act as limited rights to use resources attracted to perform certain tasks. Each position in an organization comes with specific powers. A change of post also leads to a change in the employee’s powers.

Goals

Delegation of authority is used to achieve certain goals by the organization, such as:

• connecting the “human factor” - increasing the activity and interest of lower-level employees;
• increasing the efficiency (efficiency) of workers due to improving their qualifications and acquiring new skills;
• unloading of senior management with freeing up time for solving strategic, operational and management issues.

Delegating tasks

The following types of tasks are suitable for delegation:

• routine;
• unimportant issues;
• preparatory work;
• specialized work.

But not all tasks can be delegated to ordinary employees. The duty of every manager is to resolve those tasks that can affect the future activities of the organization.

These include issues of a confidential nature, non-standard strategic problems, and unexpected situations that require prompt resolution.

Thus, the following are not delegated:

• defining goals;
• management of subordinates;
• risky tasks;
• unusual work;
• making strategic and management decisions;
• performing confidential tasks;
• development of organizational policy.

How to delegate competently and what should not be trusted by subordinates?

In order to competently delegate rights and powers, you should adhere to the following tips:

• You can’t concentrate power in one place, you need to delegate, but know when to stop. The company’s work becomes more efficient if competent employees receive some of the necessary functions additionally;
• there is no need to delegate just to relieve the manager, if this will not benefit the company, but will only give the boss a couple of hours of free time;
• There is no need to further burden an employee who is already too busy with work. As a result, he may not be able to cope with both primary and additional responsibilities;
• When delegating authority, it is always worth considering that the assigned task may not be completed, and have a backup plan of action for this that will correct the situation.

Once again, we need to remind you about the delegation of rights and responsibility for this: his immediate supervisor is always responsible for the actions of an employee to whom authority has been delegated. If the former makes a mistake, higher management will question the latter.

There is also a list of tasks that it is better not to delegate to subordinates, so as not to create more problems. It includes:

• determining the general goal of the company;
• making decisions that can fundamentally affect the development of the company;
• control of overall results;
• tasks associated with a huge risk for the further functioning of the company;
• urgent tasks, the results of which cannot be corrected in a short time.

Why can’t you trust subordinates to control results? Because this is the main task of the boss. Of course, we are talking about general control; private control is already carried out locally by the employees themselves, who take a responsible approach to completing the assigned task.

A few words need to be said about performing tasks that involve great risk for the company. Such goals, of course, can be set for subordinates, but then you need to have confidence in these people, to know that they will definitely not let you down. As a rule, the presence of such employees on staff is a great rarity and luck, and you cannot rely on luck in business.

In fact, urgent tasks are tasks associated with high risk. Of course, failure to comply with them may not paralyze the work of the company, but it will definitely cause a lot of problems for the entire company’s personnel, since all available resources will need to be spent on eliminating the problems caused.

Requirements for subjects of delegation

In the process of transferring instructions, both bosses and employees may encounter a number of difficulties. Effective management of delegation of authority is possible only by analyzing all existing and potential obstacles affecting the administration and control of current activities.

Problems that sometimes arise with the director or head of a department and interfere with delegation:

• fear of losing an existing position and accompanying power;
• doubt about the preparedness of other employees, low assessment of their performance;
• inflated self-esteem, excessive ambition;
• lack of self-confidence, fear that his actions will be misunderstood.

Problems that are sometimes identified among employees when performing assigned tasks:

• doubt about the correctness of the solutions used;
• lack of experience;
• fundamental disagreements with the boss;
• reluctance to manage other performers, especially in terms of imposing penalties.

When difficulties arise, a competent manager must first deal with personal obstacles that impede the effective regulation of work, and then carefully study the problems of the subordinate. An analysis of the situation will indicate possible management errors and will allow you to make informed and informed decisions, for example, in terms of replacing the performer or removing excess load from him, or in terms of working through difficulties of a psychological nature, both yours and the performer’s.

The practitioner tells. How to delegate authority in an organization

Maxim Gubardin, Head of the Information Projects Department of CJSC Pharmexpert Center for Medical Research, Moscow

When our organization began to grow, the issue of delegation of authority became very acute for me. The number of products produced increased and the staff expanded. The workload on department heads and the flow of information increased exponentially; the implementation of projects led to the emergence of new problems and an increase in the number of standard problems requiring attention and control. Administrative and personnel problems arose. In addition, it was necessary to improve relationships between departments. All this happened before, but as the company grew, these issues became more relevant to me as a manager. In such a situation, it was necessary to learn how to delegate authority in an organization and at that time it turned into an urgent need.

At some point, I simply stopped coping with what was within my competence. Probably, when you don’t have time to do or control everything, and the desire arises to create your own copy, then the realization comes that up to 50 percent of the tasks can be transferred to subordinates.

The response from employees was amazing: people got down to work with enthusiasm, trying to understand the new tasks in as much detail as possible, understand their significance in the overall process and suggest how they could be improved.

Delegation process

Each manager should strive to ensure that, when organizing the work process, evenly plan out work responsibilities across the entire team, while using power and not relinquishing responsibility for the process of completing tasks.

Delegation in an organization is divided into several stages:

Stage I – transfer of instructions to the executor;

Stage II – provision of powers and resources to the contractor;

Stage III – formulation of the employee’s obligations indicating the required result of implementation.

When monitoring the activities of subordinates, the golden mean is important. Excessive care can lead to stagnation in work and lack of initiative of the employee. If you do not control the process, the result will be critically far from the desired due to the uncoordinated flow of work. It is necessary to establish feedback in advance and achieve respect and high authority among employees.

Often, administrators sin by shifting unwanted and uninteresting work onto their subordinates, especially if they themselves are only superficially familiar with the topic. But this is not always correct, since the boss is still responsible for the progress of the work. If the manager himself has no idea what results should be expected at the output, how can he control the activities of his subordinate? The answer is obvious.

Experienced management prefers to assign employees tasks that are slightly more complex than what they previously performed. Such tasks help to fully reveal the potential of subordinates. However, in this case, it is better to draw up orders on paper to increase the employee’s motivation.

When distributing authority in an organizational system, it is extremely important to consider the following aspects:

• powers must fully comply with the set plan for completing the task, it is the goal that determines the scope of powers, and not vice versa;
• the powers of all employees must be correctly linked into a single complex without the emergence of contradictions and ensure the balance of the entire structure;
• All authority must have a clear and specific meaning so that employees can always understand what is required of them and what resources are made available to them.

Proper management of authority increases the efficiency of the entire organization. Employees acquire a clear understanding of the work assigned to them and the goals set for them, and thanks to this they achieve the best results.

What is delegation

Delegation (Latin delegare, translated as transfer, shifting) is the transfer of some of your functions to other people. Usually we are talking about the transfer of part of the manager’s own powers to a lower level, with the assignment of responsibility for the result to these employees. This ensures a balance in the workload of each management level.

Powers can be delegated on the basis of certain permanent documents, or they can be delegated based on any changes in the organization.

For example, if an enterprise has adopted a quality management policy, then the company’s management delegates the authority to monitor the implementation of this policy, make adjustments and maintain reports to the quality management department.

Another example is when one company acquires the manufacturing division of another company. The general director, thus, becomes the head of two enterprises, and in order to cope with the increased volume of work, he delegates the authority to manage new production capacities, say, to the director of production, promoting him to executive director.

Or here’s another simplified example: a novice entrepreneur opened an online store. At first, he does everything himself together with his wife. The wife answers calls, places orders and ships orders to the courier service. The husband purchases goods, goes to wholesalers' warehouses to pick them up, and packs them before handing over the orders to the courier service. Then, as the number of orders grows, and with them the store’s turnover, the couple cannot cope with all the powers and hires two employees: a customer service manager and a courier driver. They delegate part of their powers to them, the manager takes care of orders, and the courier driver goes to suppliers to buy goods. The entrepreneur and his wife spend their freed time on solving those tasks on which the profitability of their business depends: the husband begins to devote more time to analytics in order to understand where clients are coming from and how to make sure that there are more of them, and the wife begins to engage in marketing and advertising campaigns on the Internet .

As businesses become more profitable, entrepreneurs hire new employees, delegating their authority and focusing all their time, attention, knowledge and skills on the most important aspects of their business. By the way, in this example the courier service was mentioned. Delegating the functions of delivering orders to customers to them in this case does not constitute delegation. This is already outsourcing.

Delegation differs from conventional task setting in that the functions of a manager are transferred to subordinates, rather than the intensity of their own work being increased. If a department manager in a supermarket is required to double sales, this is an intensification of his own functions, and if he is required, say, to develop and implement a project to optimize processes in the department, this is already a delegation of authority to management.

Advantages

In general, the delegation process is characterized by the presence of two positive aspects:

1. The manager's time is freed up to solve problems that require personal participation. There is an opportunity to concentrate on planning the company’s growth prospects and administration strategy.
2. Delegation is one of the best ways to motivate creatively developed and active employees who want to develop and learn. Can be used for training before obtaining a higher position. Helps employees develop new knowledge, skills and abilities used for more successful activities.

Scalar principle

Based on a clear division of job responsibilities. Each performer must know to whom he should directly report for the results of his work, and whose activities he must independently regulate. This principle indicates the chain of service relationships between subordinates and managers of the entire organizational system. The more expressive this line is, the more effective management and communication between employees is. Any subordinate needs an accurate understanding of who delegates authority to him and to whom to delegate issues that are not within the scope of his competence.

Why is delegation necessary in particular?

Delegation of rights has at least three important goals:

1. Removing ineffective workload from managers. Business is partly creativity. The less routine work management does, the more time it can devote to tasks that require an original approach.
2. Increasing the efficiency of the company's departments as a whole.
3. Increasing employee motivation: thanks to delegation, every employee is interested in achieving the assigned task. His salary and career growth depend on this.

Despite the differences in the goals described above, achieving each of them is very important for the successful development of the company. It is much easier to manage the situation as a whole if there is no need to perform any small tasks at the same time.

The most important rule that effective managers absolutely always adhere to is that the manager cannot take a direct part in production, otherwise he turns from a manager into a worker.

It is thanks to this provision that there is a division into a management segment and a working segment. There is nothing shameful or offensive in this, everyone is just minding their own business.

A typical example of transferring part of the functions from management to subordinates is the delegation of rights regarding document flow: drawing up papers, signing, transferring them to other persons.

It is worth saying a few words about the third goal described above. If an employee has additional powers to perform a particular task, then he also begins to feel like a leader, albeit a small one, but still.

Many people like to feel responsible for something (such individuals need to delegate authority to a greater extent). This increases a person’s interest in achieving a goal, applies a creative approach, and increases work efficiency.

Principle of level of authority

Combines the two above principles. Each employee must clearly understand the scope of authority delegated to him and solve problems on his own that correspond to his level of power, and not transfer these issues to higher management.

Otherwise, a stalemate may arise when managers are forced to again deal with issues that have already been delegated to subordinates. When using this rule, there should be not only a transfer of authority, but also a delegation of responsibility.

Secrets of delegation

1. Try to delegate the task as a whole, not in parts. Each employee (in any position) must have at least one “work front” for which he is fully responsible.
2. Encourage discussion. If a subordinate can communicate directly with management and offer his ideas, this greatly increases the impact of his work.
3. Don't push the employee unnecessarily. If you delegated a task to him, wait for the appointed deadline. Constant adjustments, changes and checks reduce work efficiency.

The principle of unconditional responsibility

Although when delegating an assignment to a subordinate, authority and responsibility for the results of the work done are simultaneously transferred, this is not a reason to relieve the manager of the obligations imposed on him. It is the boss who decides to delegate the task, so he remains responsible for the work activities of his subordinates and the completion of the task. Performers are responsible for the work done, and managers are responsible for the actions of their subordinates. This principle is of particular importance when delegation of government powers and others with a high level of power is carried out.

How to delegate tasks to employees

Entrepreneurs often face the question of how to delegate tasks to subordinates. Many people, especially at the initial stage of business, think that they can handle it themselves. But if a manager controls every little detail in the work of his subordinates, is afraid to give instructions to employees, and even more so tries to do everything himself, he has no time left for direct management of the company, and this is development strategy, planning, establishing relationships with partners and much more. Therefore, company managers are thinking about how to eliminate turnover in order to resolve important management issues.

Knowing the basics of process management gives the answer to the question of how a manager can learn to delegate tasks. The process consists of several steps:

• setting an individual task through an algorithm of employee actions;
• allocation of resources to carry out the assignment;
• control over the work process;
• acceptance of the final result.

The principle of correlating powers and responsibilities

Indicates that the delegated powers must correspond to the obligations assigned to the subordinate. If the scope of authority is less than the responsibility, then the performer will not be able to fully perform the work delegated to him, but if it is higher, then a situation may arise that the imposed powers are useless or abuse of official position.

Every administrator must competently organize the delegation of authority and responsibility. The principles discussed above will help him with this.

Linear

These powers are directly transferred from the manager to the executor and further according to the scheme. A boss with linear authority is able to make decisions within the boundaries of his competence without prior agreement with other bosses. The sequential arrangement of these powers forms a hierarchy of levels of administration.

At the same time, delegation of authority and responsibility occurs only if the principle of unity of command and, at the same time, the norm of controllability are taken into account. As for the principle of unity of command, it was discussed above.

This principle shows that each employee is dominated by only one manager, and the employee reports only to his immediate superior. And the standard of control is the number of employees reporting to a specific manager.

However, with a significant increase in the number of chains in the management scheme, a significant slowdown in the operational exchange of information is observed. Because of this, there is a need to introduce other powers into the organizational structure.

Basic principles of delegation

1. Along with the delegation of tasks, authority must also be transferred. Performers must have sufficient resources to complete the work. Moreover, this must be indicated immediately at the time of transfer, avoiding unnecessary requests and increasing the level of responsibility. If necessary, you can set the request criterion.
2. Responsibility for implementation remains with the manager.
3. When delegating, you need to make sure that the performer can complete the task. Check your understanding. For a more detailed study, you can discuss the implementation steps.
4. Be sure to set control points.

Depending on the level of development of the staff and the complexity of the task, it is necessary to determine control points when you will be provided with progress reports. As competence increases, the number of control points decreases.

• Delegation must be SMART.
• If the way the work is completed is important, this also needs to be discussed.

The concepts of transfer of authority and involvement of an expert to solve problems should be distinguished.

Staff

To determine what categories of staff powers exist, you must first analyze the types of staff apparatus, of which the following are distinguished:

1. The advisory apparatus is used to solve specialized problems. Can work either temporarily or permanently.
2. Service - used to perform specified services (an example is the HR department).
3. Personal - a subcategory of the service device. Formed when the boss hires an assistant or secretary. All members here have high formal power.

Accordingly, powers are divided that can be transferred to any of the apparatuses:

1. Recommendatory - used by the advisory staff, whose rights are limited to professional recommendations.
2. Mandatory approvals are expanded to include managers reviewing their decisions together with the staff.
3. Parallel - used in cases where the apparatus can override management decisions, and are used to prevent gross violations. For example, the use of parallel authorities is justified when making purchases of large amounts, when two signatures are required.
4. Functional - at the highest level, they can both allow certain actions and cancel them. Their use has become widespread, especially in areas such as employment control and accounting methods.

The use of additional devices helps to significantly simplify the management structure in companies with a large number of employees. Thanks to the close and properly structured interaction of all entities of the company, the performance of the organization as a whole increases. For effective leadership, it is necessary to take into account other aspects: principles of delegation of authority, requirements, features, types, etc.

Using delegation is important for any leader. It helps to competently organize the work process, clearly dividing the rights and responsibilities of all employees. It is much easier for performers to work when they know what is required of them and what results they must achieve. In addition, delegation is an important factor that is used to increase the efficiency of each employee and free up additional time for the manager to solve strategically important tasks, which, accordingly, leads to an increase in the output and productivity of the entire system.

Example of Wrong Delegation

I had an example in consulting practice when the director of a company selling plumbing approached us. The problem was that employees did not fulfill the sales plan and sabotaged orders.

Before starting consulting, I conducted a sales audit, during which I found out an interesting fact that generally showed the attitude and approach to the work process:

The head of the company set tasks for the sales department for a large client, whom he himself attracted through friends and “had a hard time” contacting the director for 6 months. The manager did not want to go to negotiations on the finally appointed date, since he decided to take an extraordinary day off and delegated the task of negotiating and concluding a contract for as large a sum as possible to 2 managers. There was no talk about any negotiating strategy; no conditions or retreat maneuvers were thought out. And the managers, sighing heavily, did not understand what awaited them.

As a result, during the negotiations the client was with a decision-making group in the form of the owner and several directors of divisions, who, with their harsh behavior, pushed through such conditions that there was no income left in the concluded contract at all. And there was nowhere to go even when the director returned and got acquainted with the agreements. Reputation is at stake and you can’t throw away clients. Upon completion of the contract, the financial firm suffered a serious disadvantage. Yes, such that there was no money even for current payments, and employees needed to be paid, which forced the head of the company to take out a loan. This is how the wrong setting of tasks and the choice of the wrong performers led the company to serious losses.