The Art of Delegation

3rd December 2015

I was recently talking with a business owner who had made changes in his business which had meant that one of his team was no longer needed. Being a kind man, and one that cared about his staff he approached the subject as sensitively as possible, and went through all the right procedures to ensure that everything was covered both from a legal point of view, and as much as was possible that his employee was let down gently. However, for various reasons things turned nasty, and it became a rather fractious parting of the ways, rather than an amicable one.

Now that the dust has settled, it seems that actually this employee had not been following processes properly for some time, and they have found numerous mistakes which are going to cost the company significant amounts. Now of course you should always trust your employees (why would you employ them otherwise) but the salutary lesson here is one whereby the owner had more or less abdicated responsibility rather than delegated i.e. the management of that role, and the occasional checks which should have been made had not been happening, and as a result corners were cut, and now there is a lot of sorting to do.

What this shows is that there is a very fine line between over-management and interference in your employees’ responsibilities, and the sensible level of reporting and checks which should be in place to ensure things are being done correctly. Just assuming everything is going smoothly is not necessarily the best course of action. Holding people accountable for their actions by having controls and systems in place is always advisable, because you never know what could be lurking below the surface if things are not properly transparent and properly managed.

---

Comments are closed.