The Delegation Leadership Style: Definition and Pros & Cons
Explore the delegation style of leadership and discover whether it’s a good strategy for your business. See the pros and cons, here.
What is the delegation management style?
Being able to delegate is a crucial skill for all managers, and the delegation management style highlights this perfectly. While a manager may have complete control over the business processes and procedures, responsibility for individual projects or teams is delegated to others.
The delegation leadership style of management requires leaders to trust their employees and their skills in order to work effectively2. Delegative leadership is most successful when team members are consistently reliable and take responsibility for their work.
Pros of delegation management:
Increased productivity:
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Delegation managers can boost productivity through assigning tasks and responsibilities to their teams, meaning projects can be completed more efficiently without having to go through as many layers of approval1.
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Decisions can also be made more quickly as others have responsibility for decision making and don’t have to leave it up to the manager for final approval.
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Delegation also boosts productivity for the manager, who can spend less time on repetitive tasks and more time on the bigger-picture tasks of leading and managing a team (3).
Grows strengths and skills
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The delegating management style utilises employees strengths and skills, ensuring that people are assigned to projects or tasks specific to their jobs3.
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By delegating tasks to employees, they are encouraged to become more involved in the business, leading to more confidence in their abilities. Employees learn to trust themselves, identify their strengths and develop a strategy to improve on the areas they may be lacking in2.
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Being trusted to fulfil projects according to strengths will encourage productivity and lead to employees feeling more valued by their organisation.
Effective communication
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Managers employing the delegative leadership style still need to engage with team members, motivating and inspiring them to achieve their goals. Showing appreciation for team members’ contributions, and celebrating success over a team lunch or coffee encourages two-way communication between team members, team leaders, and managers.
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With the layers of communication being spread throughout the team, employees may feel more connected to their managers and have closer connections with the rest of the team1.
Cons of delegation management:
Weak team
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If the team has employees who lack skills or are less experienced, delegating tasks could be ineffective as projects may not be produced to the quality needed and could slow productivity1.
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Having a more hands-off manager who expects employees to work autonomously can be challenging if team members are inexperienced or confused about the tasks they should be prioritising and afraid to approach their manager. However, this drawback of the delegation leadership style can usually be avoided by encouraging open communication and familiarity among team members2.
Employee pressure
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A delegative manager can often seem like they are pawning off their work to the rest of the team, and not doing any work themselves2.
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Employees may feel that there is too much pressure and that they have too many responsibilities handed to them by their manager, especially if they are inexperienced. This could result in more employee stress within the workplace and lead to a negative workplace culture.
A delegation manager is primarily responsible for providing the big picture, informing their team of the overall situation, strategy, goals and deliverables while delegating the responsibility of how these are achieved to individuals within the team. To avoid putting too much pressure on employees or delegating inappropriately to inexperienced members of the team, a delegation manager delegating management style can focus on open and clear communication around expectations and responsibilities, and deadlines. Delegative leadership requires trust in employees to work autonomously and produce consistently good work, so is most effective with an experienced and skilled team who require little supervision, however expertise and skills can be developed with effective training and development programs1.
If you want to find out more about other management styles, check out our guides on collaborative management and laissez faire management.
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