THE TELEGRAPH: How to delegate – and why it's important

Description

Professor Vikas Shah, a lecturer at MIT and Alliance Manchester Business School, says that business leaders must design their own roles according to their strengths and weaknesses.

“A key assessment is having a really good chat with yourself about where your skills are,” he says. “Personally, I that know I'm good
at strategy, but not the day-to-day stuff – so it's really important for me to design my role to make sure that the company gets the best out of me, rather than playing lots of different roles.

"Introspection is really important.”

But delegating is easier said than done. Professor Shah says that it’s easy to delegate to the wrong person, or overlook someone more suited to the challenge.

“You never know who’s ready. You can have someone with a high-flying MBA, who has the best CV in the world, but they take a step up the ladder and just fail,” he explains. “The only way to do it is to give them baby steps and make sure that they know the parameters of what is and isn't acceptable.”