THE ART OF DELEGATION10 Tips For Delegating Efectively

A Leadership Guide by MinistryLibrary.com

One of the irst and biggest

barriers to church growth is

the lead pastor becoming a

bottleneck to ministry.

Hands down, the biggest barrier to church growth is

inefective delegation or simply not delegating at all!

Giving up control is hard but efectively delegating

responsibility AND authority is the key to multiplying

your church’s kingdom impact.

Brian BeaufordFounder of MinistryLibrary.com

In this guide, you’ll get 10 tips for

delegating efectively, plus a worksheet to

help you start delegating right away!

As your church begins to grow and you lead more and more people, it’s

vitally important to learn “The Art Of Delegation.”

When you delegate efectively, you’ll enable your team to become more

efective and in turn, you’ll create the opportunity for exponential growth in

ministry.

My passion for MinistryLibrary.com is to help Pastors, Staf and Churches

succeed. If there is anything I can do to help you, please let me know!

Email me at info@ministrylibrary.com

Thanks and enjoy!

IF YOU WANT TO GO FAST,

GO ALONE.

IF YOU WANT TO GO FAR,

GO TOGETHER!~ AFRICAN PROVERB

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1. Delegate Early

Make an efort to delegate the task early to avoid unnecessary pressure. This

allows the person to better plan the task.

It’s a common mistake to confuse delegation with “task dumping” (giving

someone a task that you don’t want to do and don’t have enough time to

explain properly).

Be careful to avoid this pitfall because your team will start to resent you for

undermining their time and skills.

If you ind yourself consistently delegating last-minute menial tasks to

a person, don’t be surprised if they don’t show any enthusiasm while

completing those tasks.

2. Provide Clear Direction

Once you’ve taken the time to thoroughly map out your plan for a project,

make sure you don’t skip out on communicating all of the necessary

instructions to the person you are delegating to.

Make sure the members of your team understand the responsibilities you

are asking them to take on. Encourage them to ask questions if they are

uncertain what it is you want them to do.

Include key requirements, guidelines, expectations and check-in times. Hand

over any resources that you think might be helpful. Be careful not to assume

that you “know” how long something should take.

Allow the individual or team to give you a deadline based on their own

schedule and workload.

3. Don’t Prescribe

While providing clear instructions is important, telling someone exactly

how they should do something doesn’t give them an opportunity to learn

and solve problems on their own.

If people get used to you telling them every single step in completing a

project, then you’ll train them to become lazy thinkers.

As church leaders, our goal should be to develop other leaders, not mindless

task robots.

4. Choose The Right Person

Think carefully about the person you want to delegate a task to.

Assess the skills and expertise.

Make sure you don’t assign a task to someone that you know isn’t ready for

the commitment yet. On the other hand, don’t hastily assign tasks to the

person you always go to.

Get to know your team and tap into their unique skillsets. It’s your job to

allow your team to develop their talents.

If you’re unsure about the person, start small and have a short deadline.

That way you can pull it back from them if they’ve done a poor job without

adding conlict to the relationship.

5. Make It Meaningful

Are you delegating meaningful or menial tasks?

There’s a big diference.

Meaningful tasks encourage people to approach their work with care,

enthusiasm and creativity.

Menial tasks are done without much efort or investment. If your team

doesn’t seem excited or motivated to take on new projects, consider the

responsibilities you’ve given them.

Is there a reason they should take pride in their work?

The more responsibility you give, the more you’ll get back from them.

WHEN YOU DELEGATE

TASKS, YOU CREATE

FOLLOWERS. WHEN YOU

DELEGATE AUTHORITY,

YOU CREATE LEADERS!~ CRAIG GROESHEL

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6. Grant The Authority Required To

Complete The Task.

When you delegate a task, you’ve also got to delegate the authority

required to successfully complete it.

Do anything less and you will place a potentially insurmountable obstacle in

the path of the person to whom you have delegated.

Authority can include creating a budget and the ability to spend it,

permission to make decisions and lead their own team.

Another great way to make sure you’re delgating authority is to hold them

accountable for the outcome, not the process.

7. Communicate Your Evaluation Process

Explain the speciic goals for each team member and how you’ll know

whether or not an individual has accomplished them.

Make sure the goals are SMART

Speciic, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time sensitive.

Agree on the performance standards that will be set for a task.

Be speciic.

What would an unacceptable job look like? What about an outstanding job?

Also be sure to agree on the frequency of feedback meetings or reports.

Good communication will ensure ongoing success.

8. Consider The Efects Of Micromanaging

Micromanaging is a poor use of your time for several reasons.

#1 Your time is an investment.

If you put in the time to properly delegate, but you constantly check in with

unnecessary meetings and emails, then you’re not getting any return on

your time investment. Your team won’t learn how to carry out the project

themselves, so you might as well have done it yourself.

#2 You are wasting your time.

You also run the risk of disempowering your team. Highly skilled and

conident people become tentative and unmotivated under the control of

a micromanager.

9. Share in Rewards and Give Credit

Taking all of the credit for a project that others assisted with is a great way to

make sure they’ll never want to help you out again.

Be sure to recognize and thank anyone who’s helped you out, and make

your whole team (not just yourself ) look good for doing the job well.

And if you receive any rewards or accolades for the project, share them.

10. Don’t Underestimate

Never underestimate a person’s potential.

Delegate slightly more than you think the person is capable of handling.

Expect them to succeed, and you will be pleasantly surprised.

10 Tips For Delegating Efectively

1. Delegate Early

2. Provide Clear Direction

3. Don’t Prescribe

4. Choose The Right Person

5. Make It Meaningful

6. Grant The Authority Required To Complete The Task

7. Communicate Your Evaluation Process

8. Consider The Efects Of Micromanaging

9. Share in Rewards and Give Credit

10. Don’t Underestimate

Delegation Workshop

What’s the biggest barrier keeping you from delegating things to others?

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Take a few minutes and write down all the tasks you do each week.

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Now highlight the tasks that ONLY YOU NEED TO DO.

Okay, that means the rest of those tasks need to be delgated!

Now name the task and the person that you will delgate it to.

Task Delegated To

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“Knowledge without

application is meaningless”

~ Thomas Edison

At Ministry Library we say “Notes don’t change

anything, actions do. So don’t take notes, take action.”

So please take this information and APPLY it to your

ministry TODAY.

Start with something small. But start today!!

Our passion is to help the local

church grow, in size and in health.

We believe both of these start

with the leadership team.

To that end, we create weekly

leadership videos and workshops

for church leadership teams.

Brian BeaufordFounder of MinistryLibrary.com

“10 Tips For Delegating Efectively

A Free Guide via @MinistryLibrary”

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