Free Custom «Delegation» Essay Paper

Introduction

Delegation is a vital tool in ensuring continuity and success of any organization. The problem of lack of delegation by managers of the investment company has the potential of posing serious implications on the company’s performance. The senior managers handle most of the vital tasks that relate to the business and also make key decisions without involving majority of their subordinates. Such employees feel overlooked and ignored and feel their contribution to the company is not being appreciated. Periodical allocation of senior duties and responsibilities enhances industry and initiative on low cadre employees. Failure by company’s senior management to delegate some of their responsibilities leads to low morale and reduced productivity among the workforce. This is due to lack of growth and development opportunities at the company.  

Case

In the company where I work, senior managers do not delegate their responsibilities to juniors. Most of the decisions that touch on individual work are made without any consultations, and it is hard to know the next course of action by the senior management. Senior managers do not give any of their subordinates an opportunity to handle some of the duties for their offices.

Problem

Lack of delegation is a major problem for the organization as it is an indication of lack of leadership. The organizational structure is riddled with various barriers to delegation which must be overcome. There is lack of partnership between managers and junior personnel in the performance of various duties and responsibilities in the organization, which leads to low productivity. This threatens survival of the organization especially in the long run. Another barrier is that most of the employees’ attitudes are riddled with stereotypical thoughts of the organization due to its history of bureaucratic and rigid structures. Delegation is an indication of the beliefs by managers in the abilities of their juniors. Lack of delegation leads to low levels of trust, which causes uncertainty and lack of uniformity at the workplace. Senior managers should involve their subordinates in setting goals and targets for their departments in line with the overall company objectives as per the mission and vision. It also determines the availability of communication networks within the company, which encourages consultations and information sharing among the workers. This is because lack of delegation is a manifestation of lack of clear channels of command in the company. It shows that reporting structures and job descriptions are not clear, which can be a source of conflict and a barrier to delegation. Lack of these attributes in our investment company poses a huge danger to the successful implementation of company policies and future prosperity. This poses a huge risk to the sustainability of the organization due to poor succession planning and places our jobs at risk. 

Analysis and proposing solutions

The study and research of leadership will reveal the pitfalls that the organization is exposed to due to failure by senior managers to embrace delegation. The study will reveal that failure by the management to embrace delegation overlooks the main tenets of leadership. 

The study and research of leadership will show that successful leadership in any organization must be concurrent (Raelin 2003). This implies that in an organization, there should be many leaders. This is only possible through sharing power and responsibilities. It harnesses and exploits the capabilities of every employee since individuals are gifted differently in various roles.

The research will reveal that it is hard for one person to be the leader in an organization which has a wide variety of roles and responsibilities for execution. It means that there must be a collective element in leadership of the organization. A team member may come up with an idea, but it may require several people to be involved and share leadership of the idea for successful implementation.

Leadership must also be collaborative whereby it is not only the team leaders, but any member of the team can speak on its behalf. Research in leadership will also demonstrate that leaderful managers must be compassionate. Compassion involves an unadulterated commitment by the managers to preserve and maintain the dignity of all stakeholders in the organization. Views of every employee should be considered before designing organizational goals. Their input is vital since they will be deeply involved in the execution of these goals.   

Rationale

Lack of delegation in the organization limits our career growth and development opportunities as employees. It makes us not realize our full capabilities in the workplace since there are no opportunities for higher challenges and responsibilities. Our professional growth is, therefore, curtailed. This limits our marketability in the job market.

Working on this problem develops my leadership abilities since I am able to understand that leadership is based on mutual influences through all those involved, but it is not based on authority and power (Rost 1993). It will enable more understanding of the need for building relationships through a sense of purpose rather than individual objectives. This allows development of joint approaches to pervasive organizational problems in search of solutions. Working on this problem will give clear indications on the need for being a leader rather than a manager in an organization. A leader will focus on innovating processes and procedures at the workplace through involvement of people while a manager always focuses on controlling people (Heifetz 1998).

My problem is not only prevalent in our organization but also in others. Solving it will lead to effective management of organizational resources through proper exploitation of talents and capabilities of employees. Management practitioners should feel challenged in cultivating leadership in their organizations where all employees and stakeholders are active players in meeting goals and objectives of the organization. Any results either negative or positive will equally be shared, and a way forward charted.

Conclusion

Management researchers must develop ways on how leadership should be cultivated in organizations. Bureaucracies are denting the development of individuals and talents, which finally leads to poor performance by organizations and may lead to failure. Formulation of proper strategies that demonstrate the need for leadership is essential and should be a challenge to these researchers as a matter of urgency. Team mates will be essential in sharing various roles based on individual abilities while resolving the problem. This is because the problem cannot be solved singlehandedly and must involve bringing diverse talents together. Each member of the team member must be realistic in revealing his/her abilities so that the duties allocated are manageable for optimal performance.