Enabling through Delegation
Delegating helps subordinates learn and build skills required to perform in positions of higher responsibility. To truly enable your subordinates, the delegated responsibilities should be meaningful, flexible, challenging, and important. Learn more about these characteristics in the interaction below.
Meaningful
Delegated responsibilities should be consistent with your subordinates’ ideals or meaningful to them personally or to the overall mission in some way.
Flexible
Responsibilities should be flexible enough that your subordinates can determine, at least to some extent, how and when to complete the responsibility.
Challenging
Delegated responsibilities should be difficult enough that your subordinates can develop their skills, but realistic enough that they believe they have the knowledge and skills to achieve some success.
Important
Responsibilities are good to delegate if they are relevant to your subordinates’ personal development and/or will have an impact on the unit as a whole.