Delegation — Tasks

There is a thin line between what to delegate and what not to delegate. To ensure that delegation doesn’t hinder business goals and success, care must be taken to ensure that only specific tasks are assigned and some tasks are not assigned.

Tasks you should not delegate

Some aspects of leadership are sensitive and should not be delegated. For example:

•  Hiring: In a small enterprise recruitment is a very key decision. Entrepreneur must have the final word to avoid recruitment of:
•  Person with wrong skill set
•  Person whose integrity is doubtful
•  Person who is incompetent

A person with a good recommendation is always preferred over professionals who do not have endorsement from a common person known to both, the employer and the employee. Since initially organization is small and there are few employees one needs to be conservative with respect to hiring. One bad fish can spoil the whole pond.

• Firing: This is equally important or may be more critical decision that must be reserved for entrepreneur himself to take. This issue must be handled delicately and carefully. The decision should be taken with utmost care due to the following:
•  To avoid loosing a good resource and getting into a situation where laterone has to repent.
•  It is a very emotional and sensitive decision. Since in a small set-up everybody is connected with each other not only professionally but also personally. Particularly as owner all employees treat you with lot of respect and keep you on a very high pedestal. They look up to you for personal as well as professional guidance. Hence, terminating a relationship becomes even more difficult.
•  Since, a fired employee can harm you and your reputation in the marketplace it needs to be handled very carefully. In most of the cases entrepreneur is the best judge. You must be impartial and unbiased in your decision making.
•  Pay issues: Remuneration is always a sensitive matter for any employee. In a small enterprise this decision becomes even more critical since there are a lot of emotions and personal feelings involved at the workplace. Moreover, bad mouthing by an employee on financial matters affect organisation’s reputation in the market regarding ill treatment of employees.
•  Policy making: These are broad spectrum decisions for an organization. They affect almost all stakeholders like employees, suppliers, channel partners etc.

Entrepreneur must be the ultimate authority for taking these decisions since with every policy decision he gives shape to the organization. Policy decisions arelong term decisions which have far reaching consequences. These decisions are critical due to their:

•  long term implications
•  direct impact on future of the business
•  direct impact on employees
•  irrevocable nature

Your responsibility after Delegating

After delegating:

• Identify business needs
•  Communicate them to the delegated group
•  Plan goals, meeting, tasks
•  Direct your team, keep them on track
•  Encourage - boost morale