Delegating Does Not Equal Laziness

Effective supervision requires a clear knowledge of the goal your office is working towards, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of your employees. You need to know that if you give a job to your staff members that it won’t overburden them or that it’s not complex beyond their abilities.

The main thing to understand in all circumstances is that delegating is not laziness. Sure, some lazy bosses delegate their job and sit twiddling their thumbs, but for the vast majority of supervisors, delegation is a critical skill, and when used effectively it makes everything and everyone work better.

Let’s look at some reasons why delegation is crucial for a functioning office, and why it’s decidedly not lazy.

Everyone excels at different things

Some people are incredible typists, hitting 90+ wpm and transcribing documents in the blink of an eye. If that’s not you, but you have a mountain of writing to do, why waste your time hunting and pecking?

Delegating tasks that involve skills that you don’t do well in does two important things:

It shows your subordinates that you can rely on them and you trust their abilities
It frees you up to do higher-level work without being burdened by knowing you need to get some reports in that would have otherwise taken hours to complete

Though it might be perceived as laziness when you delegate a menial task to an employee, as long as you intend to free up more productive time for yourself, it’s a smart strategy.

Delegation gives your employees a chance to shine

If you’re considering promoting within your office, there’s no better way to feel out the potential than to delegate tasks. If someone can tackle increasingly complex jobs without faltering, you know you have a good candidate on your hands.

This also allows you to see how effective current job roles are. Would some of your duties fit better under someone else’s job function, and if so, this gives you a chance to adopt more higher-level work while promoting someone at the same time.

Delegating demonstrates leadership

As we spoke about before, when you delegate effectively, you build up employees, take the strain off yourself, and improve office functionality. If your directors see you effectively delegating jobs and making your office move more smoothly, they will absolutely take notice.

Functional leadership means giving the right jobs to the right people, not expecting more than your employees are capable of, and utilizing their strengths to the fullest. Do this and you’ll cement your place as someone upper management can count on.

Delegating is not laziness

Strategic delegation makes your office hum. While everyone has menial tasks they’d like to give to someone else, a supervisor who does it to help the entire office is demonstrating quality leadership. Delegation is also an effective means for testing out potential promotions, and to gain some additional upper-level duties yourself.