Responsible delegation can benefit the individual employee, the manager and the overall organisation. The most obvious benefit is to release management time for more strategic activities. Other benefits include:

• Enhanced work efficiency and performance:
  Responsible delegation provides employees with opportunities to develop and be challenged. Workload is appropriately distributed across the workplace, with the right people doing the right work 
• Employee/team empowerment and innovation:
  Employees develop new and different skills with an enhanced sense of empowerment. Mutual trust and understanding develops between manager and employees. Authoritarian leadership does not encourage employees to think differently. Moving activities around skilled employees also increases the team’s flexibility, enhancing overall performance
• Better decision making:
  When managers do not delegate, they create bottlenecks in the workplace. Blocking decisions increases costs and reduces efficiencies. Empowered employees should be able to make certain decisions, rather than waiting for a manager to approve it. Micro-managing kills workplace performance
• Enhances communication:
  Responsible delegation recognises that it is a shared approach. Effective communication is central to delegation as the manager becomes a trainer, promoting independent thinking.

With so many benefits, why do some managers resist delegation?

The inability to delegate is one of the biggest problems I see with many managers at all levels - Eli Broad