Three Ways to Empower Your Employees

How many times have you handed a project off to your team, only to have many of the tasks delegated back to you?

You know how it goes – you hold a meeting to introduce the project, you delegate responsibilities to the team, and before you know it your team bombards you with questions about detail-level decisions. So what happens? You end up handling a bulk of the details yourself.

So why do your team members bog you down with questions? Perhaps some team members need help staying on the right track for the project; maybe they’re unclear about the goals of a few particular tasks; or perhaps they simply don’t feel comfortable making decisions without your explicit approval.

In any case, the point of delegating is to remove the manager away from much of the detail-oriented work and to empower the other team members with a sense ownership over the delegated tasks. All of this is done to allow the manager to handle the big picture items of the overall project without constantly worrying about the details.

But sadly, that’s often not the case. More often than not you find much of the detail-oriented work kicked back up to you, the manager. So, who’s to blame when tasks are delegated back up? As the manager – you are to blame.

If you follow these three simple tips you can avoid these delegation gaffes by ultimately empowering your team to make their own decisions without constantly needing validation from you.

Provide as much information as possible from the start – As a manager you know that questions will always come up and you also know that many questions typically mean work stoppages until they’re answered, thus there is always a burden on you to answer all questions as fast as possible to keep the project moving. One thing you can do to cut down on the number of questions is to simply provide more details as well as the generalities from the start. Have your team understand the importance of their roles and processes and how they fit in relation to your ongoing projects. Give them the means to answer their own questions!

Brainstorm together and encourage innovation – The old adage that “there’s more than one way to skin a cat” is absolutely true in projects that encompass teams of people, so encourage your team to brainstorm together on the best possible ideas and solutions. If your team finds a great solution that works for a particular problem, then document it as part of a standard process for your team that can be followed the next time the task needs to be carried out. By doing it in this way you now have a standardized procedure that can serve as a guideline for future projects. The best part of this process is owned by your team members and that helps them feel more empowered and increases their emotional investment in the project, and they may even feel like more of a stakeholder (not to be confused with shareholder) in the company.

Establish boundaries - A common pitfall managers make is to micromanage competent employees. The whole point is to have your employees contribute in order to get more done for the department, and for the company, so don’t waste your time by overseeing all of the details when your team has proven to be independent. As the manager, be sure to clearly establish appropriate boundaries from the beginning which will keep everyone on task; including you.

To illustrate this, below is a process development diagram for a new marketing campaign with a manager who micromanages his team and the project details. All of the tasks colored in the dark blue are performed by the manager:

Click here to see a larger image of this visual.

Now, if the manager begins to practice the tips above, the process is cut down by a few steps, and the manager relinquishes some of the detailed tasks to his team therefore freeing him up for his other responsibilities outside of this one project:

Click here to see a larger image of this visual.

You will find that a more empowered team is more productive, functions more cohesively, and finishes what they have started – as opposed to you finishing what they have started.

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