The Art of Delegation

Consider this man. He takes daily post-lunch naps and frequently dozes off in a lounge chair after dinner. He spends his afternoons at home rather than at the office, tending to his garden and golfing. He spends months away from work on vacation. He prides himself on avoiding “hustling”. “I’m here because I shirked: [I] did less work,” he reflects.

Many people may look askance at such a guy, but in fact this was how John D. Rockefeller, arguably the wealthiest man in modern history, spent his days. Rockefeller attributed his productivity not to his own hard work, but rather to his ability to delegate; He was able to assign responsibility to people in his organisation so that the work could be scaled as effectively as possible. 

The challenges of delegation

Delegation skills are just as important today, albeit in short supply. A Gallup study found that superior delegation skills of a company’s management corresponded with greater revenue and business growth. However, according to a 2007 survey by the Institute for Corporate Productivity, about half of the companies that responded had concerns about employees’ delegation skills. Yet, only 28 percent offered delegation training. More recently, a 2021 survey found that delegation was rated as the second most important skill behind empathy in mitigating employee burnout, but only 28 percent of participants said they were receiving training in this area.

Among the reasonswhy leaders under-delegate, perhaps the most important one is that there is currently no clear framework for delegation. This lack of structure leads to a superficial view of the practice, where it is merely seen as something that leaders must do more of, somewhat similar to visiting the gym more regularly. While we generally agree that delegation should be practised more frequently in many organisations, the key is in understanding how to delegate, and how much. Just as a workout routine is necessary for gym sessions to be useful, a basic framework is needed for delegation to be effective. 

A simple framework

Our framework provides guidance for leaders to become better delegators. The way for managers and leaders to interpret it is that the goal is to reach higher levels, but lower levels cannot be skipped. Reaching higher levels leads to far greater productivity and impact within the organisation, but also requires trust, regular high-quality feedback and long-term professional relationships. 

Level 1: Task-based delegation

This is the basic bread and butter of delegation: You assign an employee responsibility for specific tasks, one action at a time. For example, it could be drafting an email or taking notes during a meeting.

Advantages: It is straightforward to implement and monitor. It does not require deep trust in others and can be a gateway for habit formation.

Disadvantages: Productivity gains are relatively small because you must continually identify tasks to delegate and monitor.

Level 2: Project-based delegation

At this level, you delegate a group of related tasks at the same time. For example, you may delegate complete inbox management instead of crafting responses to individual emails.

Advantages: Productivity gains are greater. This can be an entry point for trust- and relationship-building with the person you’ve delegated the tasks to. 

Disadvantages: You still have to provide a full set of specific instructions. Continuous monitoring is necessary to ensure that the work is being done according to your requirements.

Level 3: Process-based delegation 

Instead of delegating specific tasks, you describe the approach and process for these tasks and ask the employee to use their judgment in executing your prescribed process. For example, you might record a video or a voice note that explains how you approach inbox management: What emails should get special attention and why, what emails should be ignored and why, and what emails should be escalated to you and why. The idea is to give them the freedom to make independent judgments on how your preferred process should be implemented. 

Advantages: There is the potential for significant gains in productivity. If successful, this level allows you to hand off time-consuming decisions that can be made by another person. You no longer need to track individual tasks because you know that the person you’ve assigned them to is following the same – or at least a similar – decision tree.

Disadvantages: This level requires far greater trust and willingness to let go than the previous level. It calls for the ability to communicate abstract decision processes, as well as a level of self-awareness to know exactly what those are. 

Level 4: Goal-based delegation 

At this stage, you delegate an overarching goal to your report and tell them to pursue it. For example, you might give them an abstract goal such as making sure that communication with customers is efficient and responsive, or a specific goal such as ensuring that each customer gets their issue resolved within one business day. That person is then responsible for identifying the necessary tasks and resources required to achieve that goal.

Advantages: If successful, you can expect a significant jump in productivity gains. Moreover, by giving autonomy to the individual, they may come up with innovative solutions you wouldn’t have thought of. Finally, delegation at this level can also empower and develop the skills of the employee and make them a more effective future leader.

Disadvantages: This level requires a great deal of trust and familiarity. To succeed, it takes a high-quality professional relationship with the person you’re delegating to – one that involves honest and effective feedback, the ability to learn from mistakes and clear communication. This is usually not a level one can attain without mastering the previous levels.

Level 5: Clairvoyant delegation

At peak productivity, you won’t need to delegate at all because the employee will understand your thinking process and goals so well that they can intuit what your requests might look like given the situation. For instance, they may suggest and begin to take action with the goal of reducing response time to customers given recent complaints.

Reaching this level does not mean that communication and feedback are no longer necessary. Rather, it means that the onus to come up with goals, processes and tasks lies not only on you but shifts into greater balance between you and your report.

Advantages: This level empowers employees with full autonomy, and you hear of tasks only when they are done. Productivity gains are maximised, as is the level of skill development for your report. 

Disadvantages: Although the potential for productivity gains is great, the risk of mistakes and misalignment should not be taken lightly. For this reason, it could take years of working together with your report to create the intimate level of trust, familiarity and communication required to successfully pull off this level of delegation.

Overall, our framework provides a simple roadmap for delegation by answering the key questions of “how” and “how much”. Effective delegation requires upskilling. By adopting this framework, leaders might be able to engage in delegation more, and importantly, more effectively.