You can delegate a task, not accountability!
One of the responses for last week's discussion on delegation skill is “After I delegate the task to my colleague or team member and if he/ she does not execute the task as expected, how can I be responsible?”.
We need to understand the difference between responsibility and accountability. Accountability is someone ultimately accountable for RESULT, whereas Responsibility is someone responsible for the EFFORT or PROCESS.
Accountability is outcome-based; responsibility is process-based.
In an organizational context, when you are delegating some tasks to someone, you are just partially offloading your task to someone with empowerment to complete the task. Still, ultimately you are accountable for the result of the task. You cannot pass the ownership of the result to others. That is why we need to understand that delegation is not just the allocation of duty to others.
Effective delegation is a combination of
Knowing what to delegate+ To whom to delegate+ Education+ Guiding
For example, as production in charge, you are just delegating the task to your reports, but you are accountable for the delivery and not your team. You are delegating the responsibility only, not accountability. Finally, you are accountable for your team’s performance.
We need to understand that the art of delegation itself is a responsibility, not just outsourcing the task to someone. When we own that responsibility, we become master the art of delegation skill!
We need to understand the difference between responsibility and accountability. Accountability is someone ultimately accountable for RESULT, whereas Responsibility is someone responsible for the EFFORT or PROCESS.
Accountability is outcome-based; responsibility is process-based.
In an organizational context, when you are delegating some tasks to someone, you are just partially offloading your task to someone with empowerment to complete the task. Still, ultimately you are accountable for the result of the task. You cannot pass the ownership of the result to others. That is why we need to understand that delegation is not just the allocation of duty to others.
Effective delegation is a combination of
Knowing what to delegate+ To whom to delegate+ Education+ Guiding
For example, as production in charge, you are just delegating the task to your reports, but you are accountable for the delivery and not your team. You are delegating the responsibility only, not accountability. Finally, you are accountable for your team’s performance.
We need to understand that the art of delegation itself is a responsibility, not just outsourcing the task to someone. When we own that responsibility, we become master the art of delegation skill!
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