by Venchito Tampon | Last Updated on February 25, 2024
Delegative leadership style, also known as laissez-faire leadership style, is a leadership approach wherein the leader gives the subordinates the autonomy to make decisions at work.
By becoming a more delegative leader, you free yourself of time you can invest in your priorities, allowing you to grow and achieve your organizational goals.
The key to delegation is timing.
When you know when and when not to delegate, delegation becomes more powerful.
When to Delegate?
1. You delegate to free up yourself time to focus on priorities.
As leaders, your priority is accomplishing your tasks. As you get results, you lead by example, allowing your team to see how you become effective in your role.
You ask yourself, “Who are the key people who can help accomplish these tasks?”. Then, once you identify these people in your team by assessing their strengths, you can start delegating tasks to them.
2. You delegate to provide growth opportunities.
Leaders must constantly provide opportunities for their team members to grow. Without growth activities, there is a tendency for associates to leave the team.
By thinking of tasks that will add value to your people and play to their core strengths, you now allow your team to solve problems and face challenges they haven’t encountered before – this opens up possibilities for improvements.
3. You delegate to grow your business.
If you’re a company executive or entrepreneur, growing a business largely depends on how well you delegate key priorities to your people.
By banking on other people’s strengths, you achieve 10x results in productivity as your team members perform at their fullest potential.
4. You delegate so you can rest.
To avoid burnout, one key is delegation. You can take some time off when you effectively delegate tasks to your team. This enables you to reflect upon work and life and reenergize yourself to return to the office with renewed spirit and heart.
When Not to Delegate?
1. Your associates have an overwhelming workload.
It is not wise to delegate more tasks when your associates can’t keep up with their current demands.
The best alternative approach is to guide them to prioritize tasks that move the needle and that would eliminate some minor tasks they wouldn’t need to do (after accomplishing major activities).
It is more of coaching and mentoring that they need in their current situation. And once they can finish outputs and achieve peak performance without being overwhelmed with tasks, it is now a good time to delegate more significant activities to them.
2. Your organization is undergoing frequent changes.
This won’t mean you don’t delegate at all.
Remember, the organization is going through changes. Some tasks may be irrelevant to the next phase of the transition.
It is best to take a step back and reflect on the priorities that must be delegated instead of overwhelming associates with tasks that won’t be relevant to the next transition or phase of change.
3. You don’t delegate if the task is not aligned with the person’s role and job specifications.
Though some employees would want to go the extra mile, it is not good to always delegate tasks that are not outside the person’s role and job description.
It would help give some growth opportunities (outside his regular priorities), but it might negatively affect his daily output, knowing that there are misaligned tasks on his plate.
Benefits of Delegative Leadership
The previous section on the correct timing of delegation has some benefits of delegative leadership.
Invest in leadership training to better understand these benefits of delegative leadership.
But here are more impactful positive effects of the delegative leadership style on you and your organization.
1. Delegative leadership provides autonomy.
Autonomy is having the freedom to make decisions without the need for extreme supervision of your managers.
Delegative leadership helps in bringing the freedom for employees to think and make wise decisions.
Sometimes, they will make mistakes, but allowing them to go through it and learn from the situation will facilitate growth.
Employees working in an autonomous environment become more productive in their work, as they’ll be more focused on achieving milestones instead of considering whether the output will likely please their bosses.
2. Delegative leadership promotes unity.
When subordinates can express their suggestions and feedback, the team becomes more united in improving their work and achieving the team’s objectives.
Through delegation, the associates unite by aligning their activities with the team’s overall goals.
Unity is likely achieved in delegative leadership.
3. Delegative leadership improves employee satisfaction.
When associates know they can make decisions and are not hindered by arbitrary restraints or company politics, they tend to see internal growth. Therefore, making them stay longer in the company is feasible.
The joy of knowing you accomplish things with your decisions and abilities adds to the individual satisfaction of an employee.
4. Delegative leadership boosts creativity and innovation.
Creativity is only accomplished when there is room to share ideas, feedback, and suggestions. A healthy environment with high psychological safety makes it easy for anyone to think of innovative ideas that could contribute significantly to the company.
If your organization wants exponential growth, you must start delegating strengths-based priorities to your team.
How to Become a Delegative Leader?
Leadership takes consistent application, practice, and growth. Here are ten actionable tips to become a delegative leader in further growing your influence and maximizing your team’s potential.
1. Be a lifelong learner.
To be a delegative leader, you must learn the strategies, systems, and tools that help you identify your priorities and your team’s priorities for proper delegation.
Most leaders start delegating without proper planning. Through brainstorming and planning, you can determine which priority task helps you achieve success goals.
Planning gives you the right direction towards your objective. With it, you can over-delegate tasks that would only waste resources and distract your team from executing their priorities.
Start learning from mentors and coaches in your industry. Observe how they can drive results through delegation. Delegative leadership style has different examples and would be based on your industry, business, and job role context.
There is no one-size-fits-all strategy in delegation. So, learn and apply what works for you.
2. Lead by example.
People follow leaders with their habits. If you do your individual goals, you can help others too, and thus, make delegation more effective.
Delegation isn’t about giving off tasks but creating a holistic example for your people.
This involves having the right strategy to help you achieve your peak performance. You may have specific tools and methodologies that have worked effectively for you that, when you teach to your team, could have an immense effect on their output.
Start being productive as a leader. And teach others to do the same.
3. Eliminate non-priority tasks.
Some tasks won’t help you hit your goals, which distracts you from achieving milestones at work.
Determine non-priority tasks that won’t add value or lead you to your success goals.
Eliminate them in your daily schedules. This gives you more room to think, plan, and execute projects.
4. Identify the strengths of your team.
Only delegate with knowing the strengths of your team. One of the best lessons I learned as an active leader and entrepreneur of four companies is getting to know more of my people so I can delegate to them excellently.
One of the things I do is to understand what area in business this person is inherently good at. From there, I can devise a strategy and plan that complements his or her strengths.
Tools and resources are available to help you identify your team’s strengths. Tools like Gallup Strengths Finder and DISC Personality Profile help your team members determine their strengths and maximize them through your delegation.
5. Delegate tasks slowly.
If you’re delegating tasks to a new member, it is best to do it slowly. The key is to see results and give feedback after delegation before providing another set of tasks.
This way, you’re helping the person learn the ropes and master the basics before moving into another set of priorities.
Make it a point to get updates from your team and guide them by asking questions about any challenge they experience in those delegated tasks.
6. Be a coach.
Coaching is an essential skill in today’s delegative leadership. By learning how to coach people, you can guide them towards achieving KPIs and peak productivity at work.
When delegating tasks, your associates will likely encounter problems and issues in completing their tasks. This is where they get lost and need a coach to help guide them.
As leaders, your role is not done after you delegate activities, but you continually guide your associates until they achieve their goals.
Coaching is necessary for delegative leadership to accomplish tasks aligning with the project’s objectives.
7. Empower your team to make decisions.
Let them make decisions for minor and significant tasks within their influence and control.
Ask for some updates, but never try to micromanage them. The way to empower your team is to let them come to you for suggestions and feedback while they are all completely doing the work.
8. Set meetings to align activities and goals.
As you delegate, you want to know what’s happening in a specific project. Setting meetings between milestones of projects allows you to see how each small win or accomplishment integrates well to the finish line.
Meetings also allow your employees to raise issues they haven’t encountered before and give you the floor to provide direct advice to their questions and concerns.
9. Celebrate progress and wins.
A battle is best won when celebrated. Consider ways you and your team can celebrate small wins even after every milestone.
That is because you’re empowering people and encouraging their positive behavior, which significantly affects your team’s overall accomplishment. It builds momentum as they gain confidence from every small milestone.
10. Develop second-line leaders.
Delegative leadership helps establish succession planning. By adequately delegating tasks and empowering people, you develop second-line leaders (i.e., managers, supervisors, directors, etc..).
These second-line leaders will be your key people to train your associates. It would now give you more time and resources to focus on high-level activities to grow your business further.
Further Reading: How to Delegate Effectively From Harvard Business Review
Delegative Leadership Inspires Growth
By applying practical tips on delegative leadership, you can expect internal and external growth in your personal and professional life.
Practice it and see how this approach can help transform the results and performance of your organization.
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