DKA Toolkit - Courses

Preventing Employee Mismanagement Through Effective Delegation

How Managers Misunderstand, Misdiagnose and Mismanage Which Employees To Delegate To and Why…

How many times have you heard that to be an effective manager you have to learn to delegate? Just this past week, a client of mine told me “I have to get rid of all these mundane and menial tasks from my daily work; I have a top notch team to handle these things!” so I asked my client “Sooo it’s OK to have your so-called top notch team do mundane and menial tasks?” I’m still waiting for a satisfactory answer to my question. But this is what we do as managers…we take our best performers and subject them to doing things that we either don’t want to do ourselves or that THEY are too good to do. On the flip side, we sometimes ask our most inexperienced employees to complete tasks they are not yet ready to handle…and then we get frustrated with THEM for failing!

My first goal in this class is to define delegation from a supervisory, management and leadership perspective as opposed to the dictionary definition. On the opposite end of that spectrum I will also define micromanagement…both these words are misused by many leaders and managers. The misuse invariably leads to the misunderstanding, misdiagnosing and mismanagement of many of your direct-reports. And the results are usually catastrophic! This class focuses on the intersection between delegation and micromanagement in the coaching process. This is essential to staff/employee development...or staff mismanagement. Offering the appropriate coaching strategies to each individual is of utmost importance. I will focus – through the prism of Situational Leadership (by Ken Blanchard) - on the role of the manager in the delegation and micromanagement process, and how to most effectively use the expertise and skills of your direct-reports to get the job done most efficiently. You will also learn how to identify and overcome barriers to delegation, and to whom and how to delegate tasks.

Through the prism of the Situational Leadership model we examine your employee’s developmental needs based on their existing level of performance and lay out the behavioral markers that indicate whether we should or shouldn’t be delegating to that employee…we examine what your instinctive leadership style is, and with which employee it works for and which employee it does not work for. By the end of the class you will have all the tools necessary to choose the appropriate strategies to lead the right person the right way at the right time for the right reason. And you will also learn and understand delegation as the end result of a process to… one – develop leaders within your team…and two – free yourself – time wise - to be a more creative and innovative leader yourself.

Topics Covered:

• Defining and Applying Delegation in the Context of Coaching and Management
• Understanding the ‘Situational Leadership’ Model
• Delegation & The Employee’s Readiness
• Understanding the Employee’s Developmental Level
• Learning to use the best Leadership Style for the Employee’s Developmental Level
• The Mismanagement Cycle – The Impact of misjudging the Employee’s Needs
• Why Being a Passive Manager Facilitates Employee Mismanagement
• Negative Outcomes of Passive Leadership
• Learn the Impact of ‘Reverse Delegation’

Accompanying Free Psychological Assessment!

Management Skills and Styles Assessment (Abridged) MANSSA

Upon completion of this course, please email me ([email protected]) for access to your accompanying free online psychological assessment – Management Skills and Styles Assessment (Abridged) MANSSA.  This class takes a comprehensive look at your ability to lead each member of your team to a level of independence and efficiency where you are able to delegate to them…as the end product of the situational leadership process. This MANSSA provides you personal insights and self-awareness consistent with the class objectives, and illuminates your ease or difficulty of adaptability in using the four progressively hands-off situational leadership styles - from directing to coaching to supporting to delegation. Some of the factors and scales you gain insight into include:

• Monitoring Employee Performance
• Measuring/Evaluating Results
• Training & Onboarding
• Coaching & Motivating
• Rewarding Performance
• Supportiveness
• Social Insight
• Approachability
• Succession Planning

The insights from MANSSA prepare you to effectively lead by illuminating your natural tendencies, strengths and limitations…raising your consciousness regarding the possible misdiagnoses and mismanagement of your staff.