Explain the concept of Delegation

In an organisation, there are various kinds of the people who are in fact working at the various places or the hierarchies as per the need and the requirement of the organisation from the time to time. The organisation is in fact started by an individual or a group of the individuals with a certain kind of the vision to do some thing and achieve the pre set goals and the objectives. All these initiators come under the top management of an organisation but there are a lot of the works that are needed to be done and all can not be done by the top management and for this the people are hired who are in the general terms called as the employees and these are the people to whom the various kinds of the works are delegated to do in the place of the top management of the organisation. So in the very simple terms, the term Delegation is referred to as the distribution of the various kinds of the work to the various staff members of an organisation as per the calibre and the experience of the staff members and also depending a lot on the needs of the organisation from the time to time.

Here the concerned person who is having the authority to do the things or get the same done from the various other sources distributes the work to others or in the other words it can be said that the staff members are given the responsibility of completing the given work of the organisation. So it can be said that the whole process of the Delegation is the process of the administration that basically involves on the fact that says to get the work done in the required quality and the quantity from the set of the individuals so that the specific delegating authority can focus on some thing else that may be more essential and has the need of that person more. The top management of the organisation is a set of the individuals called as the group of directors at times having the role of taking the various types of the critical and the vital decisions for the organisation. The complete type of the planning, management, arrangement of the funds, controlling the flow of the funds, setting the vision for the organisation and then depending on this vision setting the goals and the objectives for the organisation and down loading all of these parameters to below hierarchies to get the work done includes the various kinds of the roles of the top management of an organisation. All of these above mentioned parameters need to be done by the top management only as these are very critical issues and can not be delegated to the various other staff members of an organisation but instead there are the various other things that can be delegated to the others so that the work can be done in place of them and just the same can be controlled by the top management of the organisation.

The top management just needs to plan the things and has to control and see that the things are being done in the correct way and the form with the help of the various other individuals working at the positions of the Chief Executive Officer or Managing Director. Now the things go in the pattern that the various kinds of the feedbacks and the rules and the regulations and what all has to be done comes from the top management of the organisation to the chief executive officer or the managing director and these are the ones who download the same to the senior Zone Heads and they further download the same to the managers and the get the work done at the ground level from the various staff members hired by the organisation to do the work in place of the seniors. All the seniors are delegating the work to the juniors at the various levels to get the work done for them. It in fact starts at the top level and goes at the below level from the executing the things on the paper to the execution of the same in the actual at the ground level. It starts from the top management of the organisation, delegation goes on and on and the responsibility keeps on shifting from one person to the other and finally the manager or the supervisor who is responsible for getting the things done from the workers at the ground level is fixed with the responsibility of getting the things done as are required by the top management of an organisation. A very common scene that is very visible from the time to time in the various kinds of the organisations is that when an organisation is relatively small, limited number of the supervisors can control the workers but as the organisation grows, the needs increase with the time and also the number of the staff members doing the work at the ground level grows, along with all of this grows the number of the managers as well as there is a certain kind of the limit for the managers as well to control the set number of the staff members but as the number of the staff members will grow, the activity of the supervision is also delegated to the various others for the supervision who are responsible for supervising the fixed set of the staff members. So it can be seen that the process of the delegation is present at the various ends of the working of the organisation starting from the top management to the middle management to the staff members working at the ground level.

The role of the manager, as the name suggests is to manage the things and get the things done and this is the reason the manager is not recognised by the work that has been done by him or her but in fact as the appreciation in the form of the work that has been done by the team of the manager or in the other words by the work that the manger has got done from the subordinates. The main role of the manager is to get the work done by giving the various staff members reporting him with the various responsibilities and the main role of the manager is to give the work to the subordinates and look whether the same is being done and that too in the right quality and the quantity in the right frame of the time. The main role of the manager or the supervisor is to take care of the instructions that come from the above management of the organisation and then transfer the required things down and maintain the idea in the mind regarding the things that are to be done and make sure that the goals that have been given to the manager must be fulfilled as if all such type of the goals and the objectives will be achieved then the goals of the organisation as a whole will also be achieved and the organisation will grow and this growth will surely come to the employee in form or the other directly or indirectly. A lot of the research work has been done in this regard by the various educationist and the economists in the various parts of the world from time to time and the main work that has come in to the lime light and has very closely been able to define the meaning of the term delegation comes from the researchers or the scientists namely, Allen, O.S. Hiner and Douglas C. Basil. According to Allen, the delegation comes where there is some kind of the trust present among the staff members of an organisation and here the one staff member working as a senior delegates the some kind of the work to the juniors so that the senior gets some time for doing various other works that may be more important and urgent at that time and hence comes the delegation in which the junior needs to follow the instructions of the seniors and do the work accordingly and the main point that comes here is that the junior staff member who has been given the work becomes accountable for the same and now it is his or her responsibility to do the work as required by the organisation.

According to O.S. Hiner in the case of the delegation one senior staff member gives the right to the other junior staff member of an organisation to take his or her place and do the work instead of the senior staff member and the junior staff member accepts the offer to do the work in place of the senior. Here the name will be of the manager only in the eyes of the senior management but here the manager can get the work done from the juniors and then compile and then send the required work to the seniors as required by the seniors. Then the big name that follows these names in the research work is of the Douglas C. Basil and the research work that has been conducted by this researcher in fact mainly focuses on the tact of the manager to get the work assigned to him get it done with the help of the various subordinates and this research actually defines this as the ability that must be present with the manager, making the manager or the supervisor a very good delegation system in the nature of the working. The manager needs to build the trust level and give the responsibility to the right person to do the work for the manager so that the manager can concentrate on the various other critical and the vital things. The manager needs to give the other staff member to take the decisions of certain things in his or her place and must mark the responsibility to make sure that the work is done as required by the organisation and this acts as the main part of the delegation that says that delegation is a very delicate process as the same can be misguided and at the same time misunderstood at the various times of the working.

The concept of the delegation can be said to be sufficient and correct if the same is good in the working and the working will said be efficient if the same will be having the certain kind of the characteristics that will make it efficient in the nature of the working. The delegation is in fact giving of the powers in the certain defined areas by the manager or the supervisor to the subordinates for the time being and this step makes the person or the subordinate responsible for the whole of the process, the correct working of the whole process and then getting the desired results as required by the organisation from the time to time. But it is very easy than doing and getting the same done and hence whole of this process requires the need of the certain type of the features that can make the process of the delegation more and more sound in the nature of the working. The whole process of the delegation can not take place until and unless the required powers come with the subordinates as then only these staff members will be able to take the decisions when ever required and proceed with the work. The process of the delegation involves the delegation of the processes and the things only that are with the manager, means that the delegation of the work that is not the responsibility of the specific manager can not be delegated as the same comes under the responsibility of the other managers and hence the manager can only delegate the work that is under the control of him or her and hence can not delegate the work of the others.

The delegation must not be made in such a way that all the powers are given to the subordinate and hence it can be said that only the required powers to do a particular kind of the work must be delegated so that the same can not be misused in any duration of the time. The delegation is always made in such a way that the superior who delegates the powers to the juniors can increase the power at any point of the time or can reduce the same or can even take the same back when ever felt by the manager or the superior. Delegation at any point of the time does not mean that the manager loses the control over the work as in the concept of the delegation, the powers can be assigned but the complete control of the same remains with the superior only and hence it can be said that the work is done by the subordinates but the complete supervision and the control remains with the manager only and the subordinates work according to the instructions that are given by the manager. The main concept that revolves here is that in the case of the delegation, there is only the delegation of the authority and not at all the use of the responsibility as the work comes from the top management to the middle management nad then the same is transferred to the manager to do the same and now it is the role of the manager to get the same done but in the eyes of the organisation, it is the manager who is responsible for the specific work so it can be said that in the concept of the delegation, the responsibility is not at all delegated but in fact the authority moves from one end to the other. The working of the delegation mainly depends on the various kinds of the elements that make the process of the delegation much easier in the nature of the working and the main elements include the assignment of the responsibility, authority granting followed by the accountability creation. These are the 3 major poles of the working of the delegation that help in the proper working of the delegation. The very first step that comes in the process of the delegation is to assign the certain work to the subordinate to do the same. For an in depth analysis of the same, one needs to understand the live example of any kind of the organisation, like in the case of the bank, there is a branch having a manager followed by the various kinds of the subordinates starting from the deputy manager to the cashier to the various kinds of the other operations and the sales and the marketing staff. The manager acts as the face of the branch internally as well as externally. In the day of the working there are almost hundreds of queries internally that are required by the branch and all the various colleagues working in the various places and the hierarchies at the different profiles, all ask for the different kinds of the work to the manager and hence as a result of this the manager comes up with loads of the work to be done and hence it is not at all possible for the manager to do all the work on his own and hence he needs to give the various kinds of the work that has piled up with him to the various subordinates and hence he needs to get the work done as required by the management, needs to compile the same and then send to the various required corners and the main point here remains that the main point of the concern with whom the responsibility lies remains the manager and the subordinates are just the helping hands for the managers. Now it is the ability of the manager to get the same done from the subordinates by planning in such a way that all the work is done on time and the same can be reported by him or her. The first step of the delegation forms its base on the parameters of the work that are assigned to the subordinates by the superiors and doing the same in the required frame of the time. After this comes the process or the step of the giving of the authority to the subordinate by the manager as when the manager gives the subordinate some kind of the work to do, it becomes necessary to give some kind of the authority as well for the same as then only the subordinate will be able to do the work independently and the manager will feel easy and free to do the various other kinds of the work. Giving of the authority by the supervisor to the subordinate is very critical and vital to do the given work in the stipulated duration of the time. The kinds of the research work that has been done in the various parts of the world regarding this concept has come up with the facts and the figures that say that giving the responsibility without giving the authority is of no use and this has been very clearly supported by the fact that says the subordinate is not able to work in the right way and is not bale to complete the given task if the subordinate is given just the responsibility and the authority is not given. The authority comes with the power to do the work and helps in doing and the completion of the work. In doing any kind of the work one needs the support of the various other staff members working in the same or the different departments of the organisation and the same can only be done if the staff member has the power to ask the various kinds of the queries from the staff members and then complete the work as if in the cases there will be no kind of the authority with the staff member, he or she will not be able to collect the required information and hence will not be able to complete the work that has been given or delegated by the superior. The power to do the work on behalf of the supervisor is given by the supervisor to ask or command or at times even instruct the other team members so that the work can be completed that has been given by the supervisor or the manager. The manager must take care that the authority is not at all misused by the subordinate and is very purely used just for completing the assigned work. After this comes the step of the accountability. The work that is given to the subordinate by the supervisor needs to be completed and for this the manager must make the staff member accountable. By making or fixing the accountability of the staff member, the supervisor is able to make the subordinate responsible for the task and it then becomes an obligation for the team member to complete the task that has been given by the superior in the given frame of the time. When the manager gives the subordinate the work to be done and then also gives the power and the authority to complete the given work in place of him or her, the subordinate gets the accountability as a result of the same.

The flow of the authority is always in the downward direction but this is not at all the case in the case of the accountability as the flow of the same is in the upward direction. The authority is given to the subordinate to help the person to complete the work that has been assigned and after all this; it becomes the responsibility and at the same time also the accountability of the subordinate to complete the work that has been given in the given duration of the time. One thing that is very necessary here is that the subordinate must be delegated one role or the work at a time and the staff member must not be under the influence of more than one boss as if in the cases where the staff member has to report for the same thing to more than one of the supervisors, it becomes very difficult for the staff members to work as it is very difficult to satisfy the different managers and to work according to the instructions of all the managers. All this will have a great amount of the impact on the working of the staff members and hence they will not be able to perform to the best of there abilities and hence will not at all be able to achieve the given goals and the objectives of the manager and of the organisation as a whole. The level of the discipline and at the same time the level of the efficiency also increases a lot if the subordinate has to report to a single manager and as a result of all this the manager is able to understand what the manager wants in a much better way and hence are able to perform in a much better way comparatively.

The process of the delegation is in fact based on the various kinds of the principles and these principles generally include the Principle of Functional Definition, Principle of Unity of Command, and Principle of Delegation by the expected results, Principle of Responsibility Absoluteness, Principle of Authority Level, the Scalar Principle, Principle of Parity of the Responsibility and the Authority. First comes in the line of the principle of the functional definition. This principle says that the work that is delegated to the staff member must be very clear in the nature of the working as then only the staff member will be work accordingly and the needed result be achieved. At times in an organisation, there can be several forms of the functions that are needed to be performed and these same kind of the functions can be grouped together and then can be done in a much better way. If the manager self will be very clear of the various kinds of the functions that need to be performed then he or she can delegate them in the much better way to the subordinates and then the work will be done in the much better way as required by the management and hence there will be no wastage of the time as well. A large number of the researchers from the time to time have worked in this direction in the various parts of the world and the most counted in this regard is the Koontz and O’Donnell and according to them more is the clarity among the staff members of the department more is the expectation of the results as if the staff members are clear about what all is required of them and how the same needs to be done in the best of the ways, there are more chances of the things going in the positive way leading to the achievement of the goals and the objectives set by the specific department of an organisation and as a whole in the achievement of the goals and the objectives of the organisation as a whole. The superior must be very clear in his or her views and then also very clear in the working as there must not be any kind of the partiality as according to the abilities of the staff members the manager or the supervisor must assign the given tasks and it should not be like this that the loyal staff members of the superior get the good appreciable work and the ones not that close to the supervisor get the rigid forms of the work leading in no kind of the direction. So it can be said that the functions must be very clear and then these need to be delegated in the right form and the way to get the desired results as required by the organisation.