Wudatime

If you are in charge of a team and you have too much work to do, you have to learn to delegate. Look for a right hand person, someone who you can trust to help you with the simple tasks that you have to perform. Learning to delegate is not easy, but if you learn to do it, you will be more productive You will also be more able to relax while working and you will be helping someone who may be able to rise within the company. As you can see, they are all benefits, or almost all of them are benefits.

Here are 7 tricks regarding delegating the person who always gets you out of trouble:

1. Choose your right hand person well. Look for the person with the necessary attitude and skills to lead your team when you are not available. It does not have to be the person with the most experience or the one that works the hardest. Find the right balance. A humble person, who knows how you work and how you like things to work. Don't pick a person based on personal relationships. That could create confusion within the team. Take your time in getting to know the person in whom you will be putting your trust.
2. Be clear in the tasks that you delegate. Your right hand person must know what he/she can and cannot do. Limit their power over the rest of the team, because if not, it can create unnecessary tension.
3. Let the rest of the team know who your right hand person is. It is important that the rest of the team knows to whom you are delegating. If they don't know, it will create confusion and conflict within the group. Introduce your right hand person as someone that helps you. The other members of the team will be thankful. It is important that the rest of group does not feel controlled by your right hand person.
4. Delegating does not mean that you do not have to work anymore. Instead, delegating should be done when you are feeling overwhelmed. Don't delegate the tasks that you hate or do not like doing to your right hand person. If he/she realizes that you are giving them the most cumbersome tasks, he/she will get angry. And with good reason. Delegate means having someone assist you with the work, not having someone do all of the work. Be especially careful with that fact.
5. Your right hand person is not a second boss. Make him/her know that you are the one that manages conflict within the team and the one who makes the decisions. Don't let your right hand person make decisions concerning other team members. If you do not make this point clear, there will be problems in the future. The rest of the team should not receive orders from your right hand person.
6. When to delegate. Concerning your work, you should know when it is the proper time to delegate and when you should be taking the reins. If you delegate a task that is too complex, your right hand person may feel overwhelmed and not up to the task,  and that can lower their confidence. Start by delegating simple tasks, easy to perform and a task which does not require a lot of responsibility. Delegate tasks that require more responsibility when that person has demonstrated that they are capable to respond positively.
7. Continually change your right hand person. Why not? If you assign different responsibilities to different members of your team, you can lighten your workload. Furthermore, the team will realize that you believe and trust in them and that will raise their confidence. They will feel that they play an important role in the group.  Make good use of the qualities of every member of your group to improve cohesion, make them believe in the company and also lower your workload. And be fair with the tasks that are assigned: everyone should be doing an equal amount of work.

As you can see, learning to delegate requires more than just a minute of reflection time. Just because you are good leader and you know how to manage your team and your right hand person well, that does not mean that there will not be any problems. However, if you do not delegate correctly, you will see, little by little, your team destroying itself. Creating tensions and generating conflicts are easier than we all think, even if it is not our intention. Be fair in your decisions and you will see how well everything goes.