Managers or leaders who do not appreciate that delegation is a skill requiring analysis and selfadaptation, will fail to use and develop their own and their teams' talent effectively. In this way, they will limit their own progress as leaders since they will be too busy doing tasks at a lower level themselves and not be able to take on new responsibilities and roles. 
This may be due to a sense of not wanting to let go (keeping control), excessive perfectionism, or just not trusting others.
Symptoms of a delegation problem may be manifested as follows: 1. As a leader I have too much to do because I constantly need to redo employees' tasks to ensure adequate quality; 2. There is high employee turnover or excessive time is wasted on repeated disciplinary and coaching activities because employees can never complete their allocated tasks to specification or on time; 3. The people I supervise bring their problems to me because they are unable to think or don't want to think themselves!
Delegation or getting others to complete tasks assigned to them sounds deceptively simple - "you just tell them what to do". By not stopping to briefly analyse the following three variables: the task, the person, and then adapting our communication to the situation, we will fail to delegate effectively. Let's consider how each of these three variables impact on our approach to delegation:
Task situations range widely - from simply completing routine details of a task according to set procedures, to expecting the person to independently contribute their specialist knowledge that will add value to your project. Effective delegation requires you as the leader to have a good understanding of the task context (e.g. outcomes required from the task, personalities of the people involved etc.) and the nature of the task (having a good understanding of the important details and complexity of the task). Then you will need to evaluate the capabilities and readiness of the person to deal with the specific task that you wish to delegate.
Using components of the Joint Problem Solving model proposed by Misselhorn ("Head and Heart of Leadership", Kalahari 2012), you will need to start by assessing four dimensions of readiness of the person whom you plan to delegate a specific task to - i.e. the four C's their competence to deal with the specific task i.e. their cognitive skills and knowledge to understand and handle the complexity of the task; their confidence to deal with the task - for example, they may be competent but not feel confident of their own abilities or not wish to risk failing on the task; their commitment to deal with the task - someone may be both competent and confident to do a job, but lack commitment due to the fact that they perceive that is nothing in it for them - perhaps they don't believe the task is part of their job description or they don't want to be moved out of their comfort zones; and their ability to cope with the physical and emotional pressures involved in the task, for example, if the task requires them to confront difficult colleagues who see them as a threat; or having domestic challenges that affect their ability to cope with certain components of the task like working long hours. 
Depending on what emerges from your analysis of these readiness factors, you will then need to adapt your leadership style to be more, or less, directive in your delegation, since the way that you (as the leader) approach and communicate with the person who is to carry out the task will make a substantial difference to the amount of engagement you elicit from the person. Your approach can vary from being appropriately directive (e.g. telling someone low on the four C's what to do, by spelling out the task instructions in detail), or it may require a more participative and indirect approach when approaching someone who is highly capable of handling the task. In this instance the leader's approach would be more as a partner, listening to the ideas of the person before reaching consensus on how and when the task should be done.
There are few things more demotivating to highly competent, confident and committed employees than being instructed in detail by their boss on how to handle familiar projects, and vice versa. This kind of mismatch between the leader's style, and the capabilities of the person being delegated to, is a major source of work stress and demotivation. The skill of delegation using this model should result in an appropriate level of engagement with the person you are delegating work to. Only if the person is highly competent, confident, committed and able to cope with the emotional pressures required by the specific task, can you actually delegate the task. Here delegation is defined as agreeing on the outcomes of the task to be done with the person, and then letting them get on and do the task without your interference. The lower the person is in the four C's, the more appropriate it is to be directive (telling, selling or consulting), to ensure that the task gets done efficiently. Finally, it is always important to engage others in a friendly way, listening and exploring their concerns, affirming their positive contributions and together seeking resolution to problems. Adopting this approach in leading others and delegating tasks will increase productivity, enhance morale and motivation of employees, and improve your own leadership style.

Jon Taylor 
Industrial/Organisational Psychologist

jon@adsteam.co.za
www.adsteam.net