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 [email protected]
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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