Delegation is a Bit Like Marriage

One of the biggest challenges that women face when doing business is learning to delegate.

Are you suffering from that disease of trying to do it all on your own?

Do you tend to look at being “busy” as productive and overlooking the fact that you are not reaching the results you yearn for?

Let’s face it – delegating is an essential skill that NOT learning how to do it will sabotage the success of your business (not to talk about your life…)

Doing it all yourself means that YOU become the bottleneck of your business. The prices you pay on NOT delegating are more than just loss of income due to missing deadlines. You also pay emotional prices such as being exhausted, stress and cranky which effects your personal life and your relationships with your loved ones.

On the financial side – NOT delegating is putting a ceiling on your potential income. If you took the hours you spend on sorting through your inbox, proofreading blog posts, sorting your invoices and bookkeeping them and you put it into following up on prospective clients instead – what would be the result on your bottom line?

At the end of the day you get paid for giving value to people. The more value you give, to more people, the bigger your bottom line will be. When you are NOT delegating you limit the amount of people you can serve. When you are overloaded with your “busyness” you are reaping other people from your gift!

Here are 5 tips how to delegate in a way that would be both effective and powerful

1. Focus on your strengths

The purpose of delegating is allowing you to focus on your core strengths, which is what you do BEST and what drives the majority of your income.

Have a look at your daily activities – which ones are you great at and enjoy doing? What activities are important but are not your strong element – those are the ones you want to delegate.

2. Choose your team carefully

Finding the people to work with is a bit like trying to find the “perfect partner”.  You want to find someone whose skills can complete those that you are not strong at. However, more than just skills you need someone that has similar values and vision as you do.

Having someone on your team that might be great at what they are doing but does not share the same values and does not get inspired with your message is a remedy for failure (just like in marriage)

3. Successful delegation is all about clarity

The key to successful delegation is communication. You have to be totally clear in what you want, need, expect, how it should be done and when do you want the project to be finished.

If you are not clear about what you want invite your team members to ask questions and interview you so you would create clarity for them.

4. Become an excellent receiver

One of the side effects of learning to delegate is developing your leadership skills. In order for your team to be involved and engaged they have to be able to contribute their ideas and creativity. Creativity drives your business. Open the space for your team to show their talents and abilities.

Create time where they can come up with their ideas and suggestions. Spend time listening to them and tapping into their talents and allow them to contribute. Learn how to receive from them what they have to offer.

5. Delegating is NOT a Catholic marriage

Once you’ve started delegating you might feel that some of your team members are like your family and children, however, you need to remember that you are running a business, and not doing anyone any good, when you let your heart and emotions get in the way of seeing reality as it is. Delegating a task or a job to another person does not mean that you are stuck with them for life, even when you like them.

If someone on your team does not perform, communicate your expectations clearly and if things do not improve be prepared to make whatever changes are needed as soon as possible. Do not take mistakes or team mismatches personally, or overlook that things are not working just because you like someone.

Now I’m curious…

What tasks and roles do you need to delegate?

Also share with us your tips, suggestion and experience on how to delegate better, share with us in the comment box below.

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Have a magical week! Vered