UNIT – I Lesson 1 HRM – AN OVERVIEW Lesson Outline Nature of ...

enabling them to concentrate on more important matters, delegation improves quality of
decisions, by moving the decision-making closest to the scene of activity.
Delegation improves motivation, initiative and creativity and also helps out in the
development of managers in the junior echelons of organizations by exposing them
adequately towards complex decision-making. However might be the beneficial outcomes
of delegating, there are common barriers to delegation. Reluctance to part with power and
over-confidence of the supervisors and a belief that no one else can do the task better than
them, are a few of the barriers at the level of the delegating administrator. It takes courage
to delegate because delegation does not absolve one from the ultimate responsibility.
Often it is seen that responsibility is feared as much as authority is sought after.
At the recipient’s level, the barriers could be due to inequitable distribution of
work and the resultant overburden, or fear of failure, fear of premature display of
inadequacies of oneself, lack or trust in the motives behind delegation, or merely a lack of
motivation or perceived incompetence on the part of the person who has to fulfill the
requirements in terms of the delegated tasks. According to Mishra, M.N. (2001),
“delegation would be successful where a wide range of people are involved, where the
work provides intrinsic job satisfaction, the work group members accept the
management’s objectives, the employee-employer relations are harmonious, consistency
and coordination are prevalent, and where technology permits individual autonomy and
subordinates welcome responsibility.”
Delegation would be possible only if the higher authority possesses willingness to
trust the subordinates and to allow them to make mistakes and learn from the process. If a
manager clearly delegates authority to undertake a well-defined task, a properly trained
subordinate can get it done with a minimum of the supervisor’s time, attention and
involvement. In the context of delegation, managers need to accept that there are several
ways to complete a job and that their own ways of solving them are not necessarily those
that their subordinates would choose. Superiors could be induced to delegate more by
making them part of the team’s performance rather than their own. Where there is a
system of appraisal of the superiors by the subordinates, a parameter for appraisal should
the formers’ inclination to help the latter through delegation and empowerment.
The practice of empowering and delegation challenges managers and employees
alike to pay close attention to the terms of their working relationships. Delegation has to
be preceded by careful planning about what tasks could be delegated and in what
sequence. Decisions on who should get the assignment should be based on their workload
and competence. People should be given sufficient resources for carrying out the delegated