We, as employees always believe the right thing to do is complete our work on our own instead of sharing responsibilities. We believe that sharing responsibilities is like putting our power on hold.
By not sharing our responsibilities sometimes, we tend to carry on a great amount of work on our shoulders, leading to stress. There’s a term that people refer to, as workaholics.
If you wish to work all by yourself without any help, that’s a great skill at responsible management, but there’s only so much even you can do. Thus, there’s no shame in asking for assistance when needed. In a team, you can’t work alone. Including your team members with you, can encourage them to grow indefinitely.
But if you are also good at what you do, people will expect more from you and there may seem a pressure of overload of work there but if you can get out of this situation by delegating certain work to your colleagues, other team members, it will not only help you in completing your work/projects faster but also help your team members to work on shared responsibilities.
Benefits of Sharing Responsibilities
Sharing responsibilities gives you a chance to fix what’s working and what’s not working out without falling behind. Delegation of tasks allows you to make best use of your limited time and selected skills; it also helps other people on your team grow and develop their full potential to work efficiently and better in the organization.
The benefits of sharing responsibilities are:
- It increases team morale
- It helps you maintain your health by avoiding overworking
- It helps you do tasks more efficiently
- It lets you focus on the bigger picture
- It makes your team members feel more important and appreciated
How You Can Delegate Tasks In Your Team Equally & Not Feel Overworked?
Delegating tasks is an art and you cannot just share tasks with anyone. There has to be a particular person doing a certain part of the task and just like that everyone gets an equally shared responsibility.
There’s an important thing to remember before you go on to delegate tasks. There might be times when the person you’ve given work to, may take longer to complete that task. But that may also be because you’re the expert in that field and the person who has taken the responsibility is still learning. So be patient, because if you believe you’ve chosen the right person, then they will become competent and reliable quickly.
Before you share your tasks with your team, it is important to know when can you delegate tasks. If the task is critical and needs to be completed within a limited amount of time and requires your knowledge and expertise on it, it won’t be a good idea to share your project with someone who is still learning about it. But if you think, there is enough time and there’s an opportunity for someone to grow and develop their skills, or you think you can train team members under you for them to perform better, or you believe that sharing responsibilities will make the task finish quick then it’s a good idea to delegate the tasks.
How Should You Delegate Tasks?
There are some pointers to keep in mind before you should delegate tasks to others.
Following are the pointers:
- Match the amount of responsibility shared with the amount of authority that is been declared.
- Make the team members understand what the task means to you and how important it is for them to understand its value. When the task is not that important, or when people aren’t aware of its importance, they tend to take things lightly.
- Provide adequate support, and try to be as available as possible to answer their respective questions. Ensure that the project’s success is ongoing through communication and monitoring as well as provision for resources & credits.
- Try focusing on the results. Accept that everyone works differently, so it cannot be your way or the highway. Give ultimate control to the person handling the task to do it according to their methods and processes.
- Build enough motivation and commitment. Give recognition wherever deserved.
- Establish & maintain control.
- Agree on timelines and deadlines. Make necessary adjustments and discuss checkpoints wherever review of the tasks is important.
Conclusion
In the starting, delegating or sharing responsibilities may feel like a hassle and that your power is going, but realizing that sharing the task may help your team members become better and efficient at what they do, then it will seem worth it. Delegating tasks effectively can expand the amount of work that you and your team can deliver.
Maybe once you’ve delegated work equally with understanding, it will become easier for your team members to do a lot of work together without feeling overworked and be able to grow and develop themselves while sharing responsibilities.
