Leading, Managing and Delegating

A relationship in business is defined as a connection that exists between entities that engage in commerce. Relationships are important in business and in life. In business, you should build professional relationships to ensure you meet your customer’s needs and build and manage your reputation. Let us learn more about the different types of business relationships.

A business relationship can be broadly divided into four (4) categories:

1. Employee relationships
2. Customer relationships
3. Partnerships
4. Investor relationships

Let’s take a look at each of these in more detail:

Employee relationships

Employee relationships, or employee relations (ER), define the relationship between employers and employees.

Maintaining healthy employee relations is central to organisational performance. The following key points outline how you can foster healthy workplace relations with members of your organisation:

• Communication: Communicate openly with your employees. Honest communication is a solid foundation for your relationship.
• Build a vision: Frequently share and communicate the mission and vision of the company. Making sure everyone in your team knows the organisation’s vision is the first step in getting them behind it.
• Trust: Once you have made sure that people know what they need to do, what is expected of them and that you are there if they need you, let them be. Trust them.
• Invest: Invest in your people through professional development, monitoring and wellness programs.
• Recognise and appreciate: Showing your employees you care and giving them recognition is key in building strong employee relations.

Organisations usually develop policies and procedures to reinforce and clarify standard operating procedures in a workplace. Well-written policies help employers manage staff more effectively by clearly defining acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in the workplace and set out the implications of not complying with those policies.

A workplace policy consists of a statement of purpose and one or more broad guidelines on action to be taken to achieve that purpose. The statement of purpose should be written in simple terms, free of jargon. The length of the policy may vary depending on the issue it addresses.

A policy may allow discretion in its implementation, and the basis of that discretion should be stated as part of the policy. A policy may also be required where there is a diversity of interests and preferences, which could result in vague and conflicting objectives among those who are directly involved.

Not all workplace issues require a policy. Many routine matters can be dealt with through simple workplace procedures and processes being put in place.

Here are some examples of common workplace policies and procedures that could assist your workplace:

• Code of conduct to outline how employees are expected to behave and interact.
• Recruitment policy to clearly outline all the business's recruitment methods and practices. The purpose of a recruitment policy is to promote consistency, transparency, compliance, and adherence to employment laws and legislation.
• Leave policy/procedure to outline how leave is to be requested and parameters around when it can be taken. It helps to prevent conflict, particularly around periods of high demand.
• Privacy policy to outline how employees’ personal information is to be collected, stored and disclosed.
• Internet, mobile phone, email and social media policy outlines the rules and regulations of a company regarding the usage of these resources. An effective policy helps the employees to understand what is expected of them. It defines the organisation's guidelines for acceptable use of the internet, e-mail, telephone system or the use of social media.
• Non-smoking/smoke-free policy aims to protect people who do not smoke from second-hand smoke and to ensure compliance with legislation and workplace health and safety requirements to effectively manage a smoke-free workplace.
• Drug and alcohol policy aims to reduce the risks posed by the use of alcohol or drugs (including prescription drugs and over-the-counter medications) in the workplace. It aims to ensure that employees are able to carry out their duties in a safe and responsible manner.
• Anti-discrimination and harassment policy ensures that no one is denied their rights because of factors such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property or birth. In addition to those grounds, discrimination on certain other grounds may also be prohibited.
• Grievance handling policy provides staff with a readily accessible procedure for addressing problems or concerns they may have regarding their work, management, or another member of the team.
• Discipline and termination policy should assist managers and employees when addressing unacceptable performance and behaviours. A discipline and termination policy should always be in alignment with the Fair Work legislation.
• Dispute procedure to explain how disputes are to be managed and resolved.
• Performance management policy to outline how feedback is to be provided and how poor performance is to be addressed.
• Workplace health and safety policy and procedure to describe processes for managing risk and how tasks are to be performed. It also helps define safe ways to perform tasks, methods for reducing stress and wellbeing issues.

The Fair Work Act 2009 (Fair Work Act) and the Fair Work Regulations 2009, administered by the Fair Work Ombudsman, are the main legislation that governs the employee and employer relationship in Australia. They:

• provide a safety net of minimum entitlements
• enable flexible working arrangements
• provide fairness at work and prevent discrimination against employees.

Other relevant legislations are:

• the Corporations Act 2001
• Corporations Amendment (Corporate Insolvency Reforms) Act 2020
• Freedom of Information Act 1982
• Privacy Act 1988
• Competition and Consumer Act 2010

WATCH

The following 5-minute video explains how to build authentic relationships with employees, following these simple steps:

• Learn about who they are outside of work.
• Find common ground.
• Care and help when life happens.

Customer relationships

Customer relationships, or customer relationship management (CRM), is a term that describes the ways that companies engage with their customers to improve the customer experience.

Customer relations aims to create a mutually beneficial relationship with the customer that extends beyond the initial purchase.

There are five (5) ways to build strong customer relationships:

• Appreciation: Show appreciation by rewarding long-term and loyal customers.
• Feedback: Invite customers to give feedback to show you are listening and interested in improving how you can help them.
• Communication: Rather than just telling customers about your business, you should have authentic conversations with them. Find out what your customers need and then communicate to them how you can help address that need.
• Connect: Ask customers questions and respond to their inquiries with honesty. Show an interest in what they have to say.
• Impress: When you impress customers, they keep coming back.

WATCH

The following 11-minute video explains how a business can build effective relationships with its customers who ultimately support the business:

Partnerships

A business partnership involves two or more people going into business together in order to make a profit.

The most common type of partnership entered into by small business owners is a general partnership, where all partners participate to some extent in the day-to-day management of the business.

The following table illustrates the advantages and disadvantages of partnerships:

Investor relationships

An investor is any person, company or firm that commits capital with the expectation of receiving financial returns.

Investors want a greater return on their money than bank deposits give. They are prepared to run a greater risk in the hopes of greater reward.

WATCH

The following 9-minute video explains the basics of investing, so you can better understand what drives investors. Ultimately, this will enable you to build more effective relationships with them:

Building and maintaining successful business relationships

It takes a lot of time and energy to build good, strong and lasting business relationships. They are a fundamental part of success, but durable business relationships do not form without dedicated, consistent work.

We have to find the balance of being both givers and takers. We cannot just give or take because we need both. Far too many people do not seek help out when required, and that can be fatal in business.

The following information explores crucial elements of how to foster positive business relationships as a leader:

WATCH

The following 3-minute shares some tips and insight on building and maintaining business relationships:

Apart from meeting new people and building good, strong and lasting business relationships, networking can also help develop and extend leadership skills providing real-world opportunities to practise and refine essential skills, as well as by connecting you with mentors and resources that can further your leadership development.

For example:

• providing opportunities to practise communication and interpersonal skills.
• providing opportunities to discuss commonly occurring leadership difficulties and ways in which to address them.
• providing opportunities to observe and learn from others.
• providing new learning and research avenues.
• allowing you to learn from like-minded individuals.

Engaging with a diverse network can expose you to a variety of perspectives and ideas. This can enhance your problem-solving abilities by providing you with alternative viewpoints and approaches to tackling challenges.

Networking sometimes involves managing conflicts or disagreements. Learning how to navigate conflicts within your network can provide valuable experience for resolving disputes within your team or organization.

Also, as you network, you can build your personal and professional brand. This enhanced visibility can be beneficial for leadership positions, as it can lead to more opportunities and connections.

The challenge of delegation

As your responsibilities become more complex and you become responsible for motivating a team to successful project or goal completion, delegation within your team will become a skill you need to develop.

Effective delegation is fundamental to project success. To delegate effectively you must become a collaborator with your team and empower them to contribute their best work to your shared priorities.

One of the most important contributors to success is how decisively and wisely you activate those around you or how effectively you delegate. It is also imperative to understand the advantages and disadvantages of delegation within teams.

WATCH

The following almost 4-minute video explains the steps to delegate tasks effectively:

Delegating or assigning?

Does delegating a task sound more positive than assigning a task?

• Assigning a task provides guidance on completing the task with clear and specific instructions. There is little room for individual creativity and efficiency.
• Delegating a task gives the person the freedom to use their individual ability and professionalism to complete the task.

The following table presents the differences between the assigning and delegation of tasks:

Advantages and disadvantages of delegation

Delegating responsibility of a task may take some of the load off of your shoulders, but it also helps your staff to grow and develop. Get it wrong, however, and delegation could lead to confusion and inefficiency.

There are six (6) different ways you can delegate tasks or assignments across teams and individuals:

1. Direct orders
2. Explicit assignments
3. Requests
4. Conditional work assignments
5. Undirected assignments
6. Delegating tools

How to delegate

Delegation requires an excellent cultural foundation.

WATCH

In the following 5-minute video, Dave Ramsey explains that until you have done a whole lot of preparation and have the right people in the right seats to delegate to, effective delegation cannot take place:

Organisations that effectively delegate are fanatical about hiring and firing to create an environment with the right kind of people to be able to delegate to.

Communication is vital to create a culture and environment inside the organisation that creates the ability to delegate in a successful way.

The importance of delegation

In selecting the right person to delegate a specific task to, you should consider the following:

• Task repetitiveness
• Task complexity
• Individual strengths
• Autonomy
• Timing
• Eye detail
• Collaboration
• Stress management
• Technical ability
• Prior experience

Responsibility and accountability

The main difference between responsibility and accountability is that responsibility can be shared while accountability cannot.

Being accountable not only means being responsible for something but also being answerable for your actions.

The following table explains the difference between responsibility and accountability:

Delegation is one of the most important management skills.

Good delegation saves you time, develops your people, grooms a successor and motivates. Poor delegation will cause you frustration, demotivates and confuses the other person and fails to achieve the task or purpose itself.

WATCH

The following almost 5-minute video explains how you can delegate tasks effectively:

There are five (5) steps of effective delegation:

1. Decide what to delegate: What task, goal, or project needs to be delegated?
2. Select the delegate: Who is the best person to delegate this to?
3. Delegate: Tell, explain, ask or describe the delegated task to the delegate. Provide resources and training to enable the person to complete the task successfully. Insecure managers may delegate a task to someone without providing the required resources or training only to prove their own importance.
4. Inform others as necessary: Who else needs to know what has been delegated and to whom? Don’t fear delegating responsibility and authority as well. Foster an environment and culture where people feel they’re able to make decisions, ask questions, and take the necessary steps to complete the work.
5. Monitor results: How often will you need to check that the task in on track? Check the work you delegated to your employees when it’s complete, make sure they did it correctly, and give them any feedback needed to improve when handling the task going forward. Also, self-reflect and be honest with yourself: did you follow the steps of effective delegation or you wanted to build your own confidence by setting up your employees to failure?

As it’s mentioned in the above article, if you are not sure whether a task can be delegated, use the following rule to decide:

• Tiny: Tiny tasks are little things that only take a small amount of time to complete but add up over time. These might be things an assistant could do: scheduling meetings, booking flights for business trips, or deleting spam/marketing emails from your inbox.
• Tedious: Tedious tasks are mindless tasks, such as copying and pasting lead information from your marketing automation tool to your CRM. Tedious tasks require little skill and can be easily delegated.
• Time-consuming: Time-consuming tasks are opportunities to break work into smaller chunks and delegate portions of the work to others. If you perform a task regularly that takes a lot of time, look for opportunities to hand off segments of that task to others.
• Teachable: Do you have tasks on your plate that you could easily teach someone else to complete? If a task is entirely teachable—if it does not require expertise that only you can provide—it’s a worthwhile candidate for delegation.
• Terrible at: Maybe you have no design skills, so it takes you six times as long to create graphics for your blog posts as it would a professional designer. It’s better to delegate that task to someone who’s more equipped to do the work quickly and well.
• Time-sensitive: Maybe it would be better if you handled all of the tasks belonging to a time-sensitive project, but if you won’t have time to complete it doing it all on your own, it’s time to find ways to delegate parts of that task to other members of your team.

Who to delegate to - factors to consider

Who you delegate to is one of the most crucial deciding factors that must be considered when you need to delegate a task or project in the workplace.

You need to ensure that you pick the right person for the job. Deciding who the ‘right’ person is will depend on a few different variables.

These variables can be split into two (2) categories:

Continually monitoring and looking for ways to improve workplace operations can help an organisation stay on track and deliver top-quality products and services.

As a leader or manager, you need to monitor workplace tasks so that you can develop strategies to improve procedures and protocols.

Monitoring operations requires management, employee feedback and customer feedback. It can help provide specific directions for employees, which can lead to improved time management and increased productivity.

The five levels of monitoring tasks

The purpose of monitoring tasks is to ensure that everyone is working to the best of their ability and maximising on productivity.

These five (5) levels are a guideline for achieving that. They set out the action you should take as a leader in how much you should monitor your team or an individual.

The five (5) different levels of monitoring tasks can be broken down into the following categories:

• Level 1: Just do it - When employees are very dependable and you do not need to give them too much instruction or detail to get the task done.
• Level 2: Keep me informed - Asking employees who are skilled but less experienced to keep you updated with progress at key intervals of the project.
• Level 3: Check back first - Asking employees to check in with you before they proceed with completing a task at critical points of the project.
• Level 4: Let us walk through it first - When you ask the employee how they would approach, manage or respond to a certain situation in advance.
• Level 5: I will walk you through it - Breaking down a task into smaller steps to provide an explanation to an employee who might need that level of support and detail.

WATCH

The following almost 17-minute video analyses the roots of infectivity and the decrease of productivity:

Remember that no matter how competent you are, checking in and guiding team members will lead to a more productive outcome.

Delegation assessments

As you begin to assess and monitor tasks, you are not only viewing the team member’s abilities but the abilities of the entire organisation. When monitoring tasks, you are also assessing how effective your delegation has been. The first question you should ask is: does this task match up with a skill set that this individual has?

If the answer is ‘no,’ you need to back and reassess how you are delegating tasks within your team.

If the answer is ‘yes,’ make sure that you check in with the individual to see how else you can support them.

They might be ready to learn something new and take on new responsibilities.

As a leader or manager in an organisation, you are the link in the communication chain between your own and other departments across the business.

Management and leadership are both involved in creating networks or relationships in order to facilitate action. The two positions within an organisation, however, have some different elements and responsibilities that are worth being aware of.

Leadership and management relationships

In terms of relationships:

• Management tends to focus on tangible resources such reports, data gathering and meetings in order to take the necessary steps to help the organisation achieve its goals.
• Leadership tends to focus more on individuals and on motivating and inspiring people.

Whether you are a leader or a manager, your communication responsibilities include:

1. Communicating the needs and requirements of your work team to senior management.
2. Ensuring each team member understands their own, each other’s and the department’s objectives.
3. Ensuring each team member understands what the organisation stands for, where it is heading and how they contribute to its overall goals and mission.
4. Ensuring everyone is able to carry out their duties by encouraging a learning culture and meeting the team’s learning needs.
5. Ensuring everyone understands their departments and the organisation’s policies, procedures and regulations.
6. Establishing a climate where everyone feels free to ask questions, contribute ideas and challenge the status quo appropriately.
7. Explaining the organisation’s changing requirements of its employees.

Important leadership traits

‘Traits’ refer to the characteristics and personal qualities or skills that make a person a successful leader.

Many researchers in business and psychology have studied successful leaders across the world to better understand what the unifying traits are between them. In doing so, researchers hope to better coach and support others to become more successful leaders.

Within leadership theory, the traits are broken down into five (5) categories:

• Personality
• Ability
• Motivation
• Power
• Needs

Successful leaders often share common characteristics, such as:

Leadership styles

Leadership theory has also uncovered that there are many different styles of leadership and not all of them good.

People have different ways of getting other people to follow them as a leader. The following table explores a few of the different leadership styles that research has discovered:

In 1939, psychologist Kurt Lewin devised three (3) types of decision-making leadership styles:

1. Autocratic
2. Democratic
3. Laissez-faire

In the following, we explore each of these in more detail, including the advantages and disadvantages of each approach:

Autocratic

• Also known as the ‘Leader Centered Style’
• Under this style of leadership, there is complete centralisation of authority in the leader
• The leader designs the workload of their employees and exercises tight control over them
• Subordinates are bound to follow orders and directions

Democratic

• Under this style, a leader decentralises and delegates high authority to their subordinates
• They make final decisions only after consultation with the subordinates
• A two-way communication channel is used
• By delegating authority to subordinates, they define the limits within which people can function
• Democratic leaders have a high concern for both people and work

Laissez-faire

• Under this style, a manager gives complete freedom to his subordinates
• The entire decision-making authority is entrusted to them
• There is the least intervention by the leader and so the group operates entirely on its own
• There is a free flow of communication. In this style, the leader/manager does not use power but maintains contact with them. Subordinates have to exercise self-control.
• This style helps subordinates to develop independent personalities.

The process of consultation is an extremely important concept in the context of managing an organisation.

Organisations exist to create value for stakeholders and consultation is the process by which management aims to better understand the needs, wants and expectations of stakeholders, so that value can be created.

Consultation is an active process in which management opens formal and informal communication channels between the organisation, teams and stakeholders.

The benefits of giving feedback include:

• Feedback can motivate individuals and teams
• Assist in finding a solution to a specific challenge
• Allows individuals and teams to communicate more openly
• Cultivates employees’ professional development
• Boosts employee engagement

Look at the following table to consider the different feedback methods you might use at work to seek feedback about relationship management with relevant team members.

Three (3) tips for effective feedback

There are ways to maximise the feedback and how it is given:

1. Prepare: In order to provide effective feedback, make sure it is authentic.
2. Time your feedback: Feedback is generally most effective when it is delivered when the event or issue is fresh in both parties’ memory.
3. Negative feedback: When you do have to deliver negative feedback, give it in person. Approach the issue as a challenge to conquer together, exploring causes and possible solutions.

Effective leaders motivate people by sharing the purpose, reason(s) and goal(s) of any tasks or project they want them to be a part of. Be specific about the scope of the team member’s contributions. It should align with their abilities. Carefully communicate any and all additional expectations for a complete understanding of the project.

There will be moments when your support is essential, but a component of effective motivation is ensuring that your team feels capable and competent to complete the work assigned to them.

Effective leadership includes exhibiting a strong character. Leaders exhibit honesty, integrity, trustworthiness and ethics.

Leaders act in line with how they speak and earn the right to be responsible for others’ success in the company. Strong leadership also involves clear communication skills.

How effective leaders motivate teams

Inspirational leaders have a robust sense of purpose.

Their vision and core values drive them and the decisions they make. They are great at conveying that purpose (the ‘why’) regularly within their team.

When purpose is at the fore of everything you do, you cannot help but motivate your team.

There are six (6) ways leaders motivate:

1. Care as much about people as the business
2. Push for excellence for everyone
3. Lead with both their ‘head’ and their ‘heart,’ finding balance
4. Seeks to learn from others and not just teach
5. Develops and supports others
6. Values the input of everyone on the team

WATCH

The following 9-minute video shares six (6) ways to motivate a team:

Answer the following multiple-choice questions to check your understanding: