Originally posted by teejay@Mar 16 2006, 11:50 PM
how about assigning responsibilities and yet having to take accountability?
i have learn that you can delegate task and authority in some cases power, but what about the total responsibility and accountability for that task, coz i'm very sure you can't delegate that down the line......
if you are a head of a dept. you are full responsible for all of your subordinates actions and non-actions correct?
now can that subordinate be held to all the task ,responsibilities and the accountability of his/her actions? if there is a head, he is accountable to all under his wings....i learned that the very hard way..... 
to me , i can delegate part of the responsibility to a subordinate, but there still lies some greater part in me that will be held accountable......
am i making sense or issit too late for my brains to work.... :lazy: :lazy:
teejay, it'll always be easy for someone like me to sit behind a monitor and blabber away than it will be to do it in practice.
but i think we need to make the distinction between task and objective. as a manager, you are responsible for some objectives that your bosses demand out of you. to meet that objective, you break it down to low level tasks. exactly how you do it, ie the tasks you choose, is not important to your bosses as long as you achieve the objective within time and cost constraints.
likewise, from you to your subordinates, you split the original higher level objectives into lower level objectives for them. ideally you give them a free hand how they choose to interpret these low level objectives into tasks, provided it meets their objective within allowed constaraints.
of course, as a good boss, you should guide them and run through with them the action plan they propose. hopefully with your experience and wisdom, you can immediately tell if what they had in mind is easily feasible in reality.
but more than that, when any boss splits objectives to his workers, he should know well what the strengths of each worker is. and concentrate on his strength when choosing which portion of the objective cake to give him. do not allow their disability to direct the way you assign objectives.
ie do not go by elimination. go by what is right and can be done.
after all, no one can do anything with what they cannot do. so if we take the view that we see each worker for what he can do, and what his potential is, and then see what specific limitations he has that prevents that potential to be unleashed, and work towards removing that limitation. only those limitation that become a hindrance to them achieving what they can do, should receive attention. anymore attention to their other limitations will eventually lead to a lot of politics and favoritism.
of course quality of people matters. with the wrong guys for the job, maybe you just have to use your authority to dictate whilst you get replacements-it cannot be a long term plan.
