Delegation Skills - Training for Managers and Professionals

Unlocking Your Team's Potential

Confidence

Develop Confidence

Overcome fear of losing control and skepticism by developing confidence and skills for effective delegation.
Communication

Improve Communication

Learn how to tell your team what you need to avoid misunderstandings and frustration on both sides.
Support

Receive Support

Benefit from group training, and online coaching to confidently practice delegation skills with compromise.

Refine your communication skills by learning to harness your emotional intelligence with one of the UK's most acclaimed management training courses.

Why Choose This Training?

More Than Just A Course Of Lectures

What gets in the way of developing and holding on to new communication skills are old habits of thinking and speaking. Even if the advice is very good the reason why it rarely sticks are the mental habits people inevitably revert to, especially under pressure.

Unlearning those old habits and internalising a more effective and lasting approach to communication needs more than a short course of lectures on how to do it.

What Makes This Training Stand Out?

What makes this training stand out is the exceptional support through one-to-one coaching sessions and continuous feedback. Changing behaviour is not an easy task as old habits are hard to break.

With a 40-year track record we can help you cultivate practical skills, and build your confidence to so you can successfully navigate real-world challenges, ensuring lasting behavioural improvements.

Testimonials

Join thousands of participants getting results

"What I love about this course is that I didn't just learn about the topic, this course is about ME.  I'm confident I can reliably use my new skills, even when under pressure".

5 stars

A Project Manager At A Tech Company

"A lesson for life! The power of effective communication is incredible when one masters the skills "listening with empathy" and "speaking assertively"

5 stars

A Project Quality Engineer

Clients We Have Worked With

Well-known companies who have used this course again and again, over many years

  • Amgen 3
  • BBC
  • aunt bessies
  • Cargill 2
  • Heinz Logo 3
  • Civil service
  • NHS 2
  • Kelloggs Logo 2
  • IGT
  • JM 4 copy
  • Schweppes 3 logo
  • Castrol 3
  • Dewhirst 2
  • avon logo png
  • Nestle Logo
  • RSPB Logo 2022
  • Shell
  • UNHCR 3
  • unilever 2
  • BP 2
  • FBN 2

Course Summary

Training Objectives

This course is designed to improve your ability to delegate tasks effectively. You'll learn how to be better at developing your people. It involves trusting others to find their own solutions to problems, and allows them to take responsibility and use their own initiative. You'll practice taking on the role of a mentor or a coach, and asking open questions to get to the heart of the problem before you are tempted to give your advice, or take over. This will help you to build trust, encourage people to think for themselves and results in more satisfying conversations.

Emotional Intelligence

You will learn a set of powerful emotional intelligence communication techniques so that you can manage difficult conversations, handle challenging situations, build relationships and set firm boundaries.

Transferable Skills

The goal of this training is to equip you with the tools they need to build strong, lasting relationships in your professional life, although because these skills are so transferable many clients report vast improvements in their personal relationships as well.

Develop Skills

This is a skills development rather than just a theoretical programme, so the emphasis throughout will be on you taking turn after turn, practising your skills, while receiving feedback and coaching about your effect on others.

Repeated Practice and Feedback

In your coaching sessions you will be helped to practise dealing with the kinds of situation you find challenging, again and again, until you are confident you can do it successfully.

Video Analysis

We'll combine practical, hands-on experience with video replay and analysis and discussion of the principles involved to help you gain both skills and understanding. Special attention is paid to your individual training needs, so you can practise your skills in real-life situations that you have to handle at work.

Sustained Change

That's why as well as your place in a small group, this training includes a generous amount of private and confidential one-to-one coaching sessions online, spread over several months, ensuring an exceptional level of support. This will ensure the changes you make are sustained over a longer period of time and any obstacles are overcome. Choose between online training available worldwide, or in-person face-to-face courses in the UK.

Course Dates and Price

For a list of upcoming course dates (for online coaching and face-to-face training), the locations of the next 3-day public courses in the UK and pricing Click here.

Free Initial Session

This initial coaching session serves as an introduction to the "Skills with People" course, allowing you to understand the course's relevance and effectiveness for your specific needs before committing to it.

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Now by involving people he takes them with him

What makes this delegation skills training so effective?

For more than 40 years this training course on how to delegate with confidence has proven to be one of the most highly acclaimed. Over the years we've had thousands of managers and professionals through our hands. Many have said it's one of the best delegation training courses they ever attended. We have helped our clients develop their skills so they can communicate more effectively, and succeed in both their personal and professional lives.

Delegation is a crucial skill for managers, as it allows you to allocate tasks effectively and manage your workload. On this course we'll help you to master these valuable skills, so you can improve your delegation skills and become a more effective leader.

Here are a few reasons why you may want to consider this training course:

Topic

Benefits of this Delegation Skills Training

Struggling to let go

Learn to delegate and empower others, develop their skills, and trust their ability to do the task well.

Insisting

Learn how to communicate the importance of task completion without being overbearing, and how to be clear, firm, and calm.

Patience

Learn to communicate expectations succinctly and check for understanding, without going around in circles.

Trust

Learn to create a culture of empowerment and provide the right level of support to team members. Become a skilled mentor or coach.

Feedback

Learn to provide regular feedback and follow-up on delegated tasks, giving constructive feedback to improve skills.

Coaching

Receive one-to-one coaching support to ensure confidence in delegating tasks and making necessary adjustments.

 

Struggling to let go: Sometimes you may struggle to let go. Delegation isn't just about offloading tasks but also about empowering others and developing their skills. It may be difficult for you to do if you don't trust other will be able to do the task as well as you. On this course you'll learn how to delegate and insist the job is done the right way, without becoming overbearing.

Insisting: You may struggle to know how to communicate the importance of ensuring tasks are done right without being overbearing. On this course we'll show you how to do it without the risk of coming across like you're nagging or bullying. You'll learn how to be calm and quiet, while remaining firm and irresistibly and unmistakably clear.

Patience: You may struggle if you don't have the patience to communicate your expectations about the task clearly, including the goals, deadlines as part of the delegation process, and expected outcome. On this course you'll learn how to say it succinctly, without having to go all round the houses, and then check other people have understood what you're asking for.

Trust: Delegation requires trust for you to feel save leave a task to someone else. You need to be able to trust your other team members are capable of completing the task effectively. On this course you'll learn how to create a culture of empowerment, where team members are encouraged to take on responsibilities and make decisions. If you don't trust that they've yet got what it takes to do the job, they may need extra support. On this course you'll learn how to provide them with the right level of support and become a skilled mentor or coach so you can help them succeed.

Feedback: You will need to provide regular feedback, and to follow-up on delegated tasks to ensure that they are completed to the right standard. This process also provides an opportunity for team members to receive constructive feedback and improve their skills. If you're not confident about how to do that, in particular how to give someone a rocket for getting it wrong without upsetting them, you'll be able to learn how to do that on this course.

Coaching: On this course you'll receive a generous amount of one-to-one coaching to support the group training sessions. You'll be really pleased with the amount of personal attention you receive. It will guarantee you'll learn the skills you need to be confident in delegating tasks and projects, and making any necessary adjustments to ensure that they are on track.

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People used to be scared of him - no longer

What difficulties might you face when delegating?

  • You may be afraid that delegating tasks will result in you losing control. This can be especially challenging if you are used to doing everything yourself.
  • You may not trust your team members to complete tasks effectively (or as well as you), which can make it difficult to delegate.
  • You may not feel confident in your own delegation skills and may not know how to delegate effectively.
  • You may find it difficult to identify tasks that can be delegated and to whom they can delegate them.
  • You may face resistance from team leaders and team members who are not comfortable with the idea of delegating tasks.
  • You may not communicate tasks effectively, which can lead to misunderstandings and frustration on both sides.
  • You may find it challenging to help employees balance their workload and delegate tasks effectively, especially if you are already feeling overwhelmed.

To overcome these difficulties, you'll need suppport. On this course you'll receive all the support you need learn to develop your delegation skills, and as much practice as you can take until you're confident you know how to do it well.

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Learn how to be both firm and fair

Might this be the right delegation skills course for you?

Might this London UK effective delegation skills training raise your sights about what you can achieve as a manager?

What does it mean to have good delegation skills?

The meaning of delegation in management is trusting others to find their own solutions to problems, and to let them get on with the task without the manager believing they have to do everything themselves. It might involve the manager holding back from giving advice and only offering it when they are certain that it is needed. A manager is better at developing people if they are comfortable delegating, as it allows others to think for themselves. A leader who is good at delegating encourages others to take responsibility and use their own initiative.

A manager with delegation skills may take on a role of mentor, coach or counsellor to help the other person explore their own thoughts, feelings and concerns about how to get the task done. A leader who delegates work effectively might ask open questions to get to the heart of the problem before trying to solve it, such as "Why are you so concerned?", "How have you tried to tackle it?", and "What do you think the main obstacle is?"

When people have been trusted and delegated to they are encouraged to think for themselves they respond better to these kinds of questions because it makes them feel more understood because their manager is more interested in what they think, and is therefore more satisfying to talk to. When their manager does give advice they are more confident in it because they've shown a better understanding of the difficulties.

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He's now far more aware of his impact on others

Why is the art of delegation difficult?

Most managers and professional people assume the role of Problem Solver. A Problem Solver, like the doctor doing a diagnosis, asks for facts and tries out ideas. So, they have to take control of the discussion. They take pride in the role and often feels under great pressure to produce a solution. If they are have got used to the role of Problem Solver leaders may not have got into the habit of delegating very often. It's because they may be the expert on a technical matter that they may become frustrated with other people being much slower at arriving at solutions. They may find it hard to delegate because they are nervous about leaving things up to less qualified, or less confident, or less experienced people may be slower, less efficient, or less effective.

However, although people who struggle to think through a problem for themselves may initially welcome help from a manager who does the bulk of the thinking for them, there are some serious limitations with delegating reluctantly. The manager who takes on too much, without delegating any of the responsibility is not very good at developing people because they are kept dependent on the manager. A manager who is unwilling or unable to delegate effectively runs the risk of committing to more work than they can deliver, which is likely to jeopardise their productivity and their reputation if they start missing deadlines. They may also end up taking on so much work that they burn out.

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Are you helping them think for themselves?

How does a good leader delegate effectively?

Good leaders who are interested in developing people, making others feel valued and respected, and are keen to share the workload by delegating work effectively, and safely can develop their delegation skills, in the following three ways;-

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Assertiveness, Listening Skills & Emotional Intelligence Training

A typical example of a manager who struggled to delegate effectively

Here is an example of how learning to delegate effectively can help other people to have more confidence in your abilities to manage a heavy workload. People come on our delegation skills training course because they want to know how to delegate work effectively without losing control. Over the years lots of participants who have attended our delegation skills training course wanting to develop their delegation training skills, and have come because of issues just like this. Does this ring any bells for you or someone you know?

The problem - a manager not very confident about how to delegate to others

Senior manager who was better at solving problems than anyone else in his team, but the more he solved the longer was the queue at his door. His director was getting worried because the manager was working very long hours, and beginning to show signs of strain. He was missing some of his deadlines. And he was finding it necessary, when managerial vacancies occurred in his department, to recruit from outside rather than to promote from within because there was no-one ready in the department to fill the vacancies. Although he started out showing great promise it was beginning to look as though he might not be able to go as far in his career as both he and others had hoped. The director had told him he needed to change his style of management - to delegate more and to concentrate on developing his team - but although he tried, and in spite of his good intentions, he did not seem able to keep it up.

The diagnosis - why was this manager unable (or unwilling) to delegate?

He was very good at solving problems, and it was this that made him so successful in the early days. So much so that it had become a habit. As soon as someone brought him a problem he would mentally take it over and solve it. Unfortunately, the effect this habit of response had on others was to prevent them from successfully delegating tasks to others and enabling them to develop their own ability to solve problems. It resulted in them lacking confidence in their ability to think for themselves and in them becoming increasingly dependent on him. This in turn caused him to lose confidence in them, making him even less willing to delegate responsibilities to them, and so things went from bad to worse. The irony was that by being so good at solving problems he was digging a pit from which it was becoming harder and harder to escape. His compulsive problem-solving had become a habit that was threatening his career if he wasn't able to start delegating, and although the habit was a hard one to break he was going to have to change.

The mental obstacles to change - what was putting him delegating effectively?

For this manager there were two main mental obstacles to change, and both would have to be overcome if the change was to be genuine and lasting. The first was his strong but deep-seated conviction that it if he could not produce the answer himself he would be seen to be failing in his job, so delegation was not an option. The second was the pace at which he worked - his permanent sense of time pressure. He always felt he did not have time to coach others - that it would be much quicker to sort the problem out himself. He was therefore unwilling to delegate to others. So, no change would be possible or permanent unless he was able to give up the need to be seen to be the one providing the answer, and unless he was able to slow down his responses when faced with a problem.

The remedy - how did he develop his delegation skills?

He first needed to be made clearly aware of the habit that was causing him the problem, and of the mental obstacles he would have to overcome. He needed to realise and accept that although it started out as a strength, it had, in effect, become an obstacle to progress, that changing a habit is not easy but that his career depended on it. Then he needed to learn how to shift the focus of his attention when someone brought him a difficulty from tackling it himself to finding out what was stopping them tackle it. This was an entirely different way of listening. He had never listened like this before, and at first he felt strange and uncomfortable doing it. But with specific coaching, encouragement, practice and persistence he learned how to slow down, set aside his own thoughts about how to solve a problem, and pay attention instead to other people's thoughts. In this way he was able to start coaching people, win back control over his working day, change his style of management, became more comfortable delegating to others and rescue his career.

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Free exploratory coaching session

The first session is free so you're not committing yourself until you're sure this training is relevant for you. You will also learn something practical you can use right away that'll help you handle a difficult situation more successfully at work.

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