Enjoy this guest post by Nikki Brooks

Management is a tough and, at times, lonely role. It requires a blend of skills and approaches that only a few can bring together successfully.

Being an excellent manager means ensuring you are the one with which a problem filtering up stops with, and you are the one who ensures positivity and purpose is all that comes back down to your staff.

You must be resilient, adaptable and resourceful with your staff too. Knowing when to delegate tasks is vital in becoming a successful manager, for a multitude of reasons, which we examine here.

Empowerment

Being an excellent manager is all about getting the best out of your people. If they’re excelling in their work, then you’re excelling in yours. It is not your role to do the tasks and be hands-on – it is your job to make sure they’re done properly.

An article by Leadership Choice suggests by giving employees autonomy over a task, you can empower them to make it their own and excel. However, in giving the right task to the right person, you can ensure you have certain control over the situation before they take away the autonomy and run with it.

Resource Management

Resource management is critical in any business, not least in startups. A new manager putting together a new team needs to ensure they have the right blend of people carrying out all the tasks that need completing. Digital marketing firm Ayima explains how delegating resource is one of the biggest challenges a new startup can face. Delegating tasks to the wrong person, or not having all the necessary roles filled by your staff, is one route to start-up failure and the blame lies solely with the manager.

An article by L Spark tells how Ziversity, a Canadian SaaS startup, describes how poor team structure and direction ultimately led to the company’s demise. A good manager gives direction through delegation and manages resource correctly, something that could be crucial to the success of a start-up, or the continued success of a rapidly evolving existing business.

Time Management

A manager will have more tasks and commitment pass across their diary than time allows for, so by delegating some of those tasks you’ll be saving vital time.

It seems an obvious benefit, but in passing tasks to staff, a good manager is effectively managing their time in a strong and efficient manner. The key is which tasks to hand down and to consider the staff member’s time management too. Giving them a job might save you an hour, but can they do it in their allotted time as well?

Control

We’ve already covered how relationships between employer and employees on Just Coach It is one of the key factors in becoming a successful business. One of the key points of interaction between the two parties is delegation. People who work for you come to you for tasks and it is your responsibility to control them and ensure they’re doing the tasks given.

How you handle that interaction and control is important. A good manager empowers their staff, as we mentioned above, but they do so without relinquishing control. Autonomy, or the feeling of autonomy, is important, but perhaps not as important as a manager knowing the task that needs doing will be done effectively.

Content written by Niki Brookes for justcoachit.com