One of your most crucial tasks as a leader is teaching your people to think and ask the right questions. In this way, you’ll be assured the sky isn’t going to fall if you take a day off. Delegation is so important that failing to execute it places you, your team, and your company at a disadvantage.

Unnecessarily hoarding work is going to make your employees unhappy too:

• It’ll breed mistrust among them and make it difficult for you to fully harness their talents and abilities.
  
• Worse still, it spreads you thinly and increases your stress levels as well as that of your workers. Morale and productivity are only going to suffer.

Learning to entrust assignments to subordinates is more crucial than you think. However, simple as it may sound, there are various barriers to pulling it off successfully.

To overcome these barriers, you need to identify them first. Outlined below are what may be keeping you from reaching your goals and how to conquer them.

Overcoming Common Delegation Barriers

1 – A Desire to Perform Tasks Personally

In some cases, you might wish to complete all the responsibilities on your own as you may be in a better position to handle the work, time-wise or quality-wise.

Also, you might just enjoy that specific job despite your already packed schedule. Showing how busy you are tends to create a positive image in front of others too.

Suggestion: Accept the Need to Delegate

You must realise that when you entrust work to others, you’re actually multiplying your capacity. You’ll have time to do things that only a manager should do, like speaking with VIP clients.

Besides that, you need to take a breather every now and again too, so leave what can be consigned to your team.

2 – A High Level of Insecurity

When you feel that your workers are more skilled than you are, you may sometimes avoid delegating. You might fear that your position will be in danger as your inabilities might be exposed.

Besides, who wants to be compared with a staff member whose skill in a certain area outshines your own?

Suggestion: Be Happy as a Mentor

Rather than think of them as competition, treat them as a disciple. Remember that you’re on the same team and that you’re aiming for the same things.

Raise them to become the best versions of themselves and consider it a victory when they do because it means you taught them well.

3 – A Lack of Confidence in Subordinates

You may not want to risk consigning crucial tasks because you don’t trust your team members to deliver. If an employee is not capable enough, you’re left no other choice but to walk them through the process.

This may mean expending twice the amount of effort in completing the job and you may not want that.

Suggestion: Trust Your Hiring Choice

It’s normal to be hesitant to assign things to someone who’s new to the job. However, understand that humans tend to learn more when they make mistakes and have to find solutions to the problem by themselves.

Don’t dump everything in their hands though, but do it slowly and start with the less critical tasks.

4 – A Scarcity of Time to Mentor

Bosses constantly look for ways on how to make the team more efficient at what they do because time is money. If you think that explaining a task or teaching skills requires a huge chunk of the day, you’d be tempted to skip the delegation and do the assignment on your own.

Suggestion: Make Tasks as Clear as Possible

Ease your worries that your employees might make a mistake by clearly defining the results the client is wanting to see from your team.

Knowing what exactly is expected of them will allow your workers to perform better since they are aware of the particular direction they should be heading for.

5 – A Wish to Retain Control

Some business owners like taking responsibility and feel important when people turn to them for solutions. If you have a strong desire to stay in control of your company, you likely want to micromanage everything so you know every single detail of your organisation’s projects.

Suggestion: Have a System in Place

Allow your staff to make informed decisions on their own. To do this, they’ll need all the relevant data though you won’t always have the time to talk to them one on one.

You can address this concern by setting up a more effective communication system. For instance, you can have them use Skype for urgent matters while all others are to be discussed via email.

6 – An Aversion to Seeking Help

You may feel that asking for help is a sign of weakness and that it’s shameful to show a vulnerable side, especially to those working under you. There’s this fear of appearing too needy or imposing as well.

Nobody likes revealing their struggles and having others realise that you don’t have it all together either.

Suggestion: Think of It as a Sign of Strength

People who are truly strong know the limits of their own abilities. They know what they’re capable of and what are best left in the hands of other people.

Anyway, letting a specialist handle the assignment means higher-quality output which is a greater win for the whole organisation.

7 – A Distraction by Personal Issues

There are times when you have personal concerns with some of the members of your team. They might’ve borrowed money and have yet to pay you back. Or maybe they spread rumors about you.

It’s easy to let your emotions get the best of you and let them affect how you manage the team.

Suggestion: Keep Things Professional

By now, you should know that you must never mix work matters with personal issues. This will only result in unnecessary drama.

The worst case scenario is that your staff members might be forced to side with you simply because you’re the boss and not because you’re right. This is just outright wrong.

Selecting the Right People for the Job

It’s critical that you properly deal with delegation obstacles if you want to be successful as a leader and if you want your company to grow. In addition to our suggestions, you may also want to look at our strategies on how to delegate better.

When it comes to delegating, we at Remote Workmate believe it’s just as crucial that you choose suitable people to perform the work as well. Matching the job with the capabilities of your team members makes delegation even more effective as it speeds up organisational operations.

Do you need help looking for qualified virtual assistants to delegate to? Leave it to us; we specialise in finding the best offshore talent for organisations of all sizes. We endorse only candidates who meet the criteria you’ve set, as we take care of the screening in your place.