When you think of virtual sales, you think of Bambi. She has mastered the art of cold calling, and was particularly skilled in closing deals within the first 15 minutes of the conversation. Her company, GDR Ventures Ltd, a multi-product sales company based in Lagos, Nigeria, are equally excellent in recognizing and rewarding exceptional employees, and Bambi has been decorated with accolades in the past.

Her trophy shelf is colourfully adorned with awards of every kind, for achievements ranging from “Highest Sales in the Year”, “Excellent Customer Management Skills”, “Top Revenue Achiever of the Year”, and so on. In fact, as part of her last year’s reward package, Bambi visited Seychelles on an all-expense-paid trip. She was living the best life of an ultra-high performer.

Two months ago, the company promoted Bambi to a Senior Sales Manager for her Region, and the new position came with a Sales Assistant. Damaris, entry-level graduate of Communication Art, stood out to the hiring managers and was hired to assist Bambi. Two months in, she has been drowned in complete idleness, Bambi will hardly engage her…

Many top performers like Bambi, also struggle with this aspect of management capability. They know the ropes, they know the rules, they bring in the spoils, but when it comes to assigning another to take the reins, their insecurities become revealed. In some cases, even, these managers are drowning in too many tasks, and they wish they had more hands or more time.

Delegation is the transfer or assignment of responsibilities to another to carry out specific tasks. It concerns authorizing others to act on one’s behalf. And this is considered one of the biggest struggles of many high flyers in the corporate world.

John C. Maxwell, that Leadership Guru, once said: “if you want to do a few small things right, do it yourself. If you want to do great things and make big impact, learn to delegate.”

Here are three things to help you improve your delegation skills:

1. Deconstruct your Responsibilities

There are things you must do yourself, those you can review after it is done by others, and those you should not do or see at all. Delegate the last two. Taking off tasks from your desk which others can easily handle, leaves you more time and energy in your hands to lead better.

2. Master the Matrix of Important and Urgent Tasks

In his book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey, constructed the insights of Eisenhower into a matrix called the Eisenhower Decision Matrix. It is a simple quadrat showing “Important-Urgent”, “Important-Not Urgent”, “Unimportant-Urgent” and “Unimportant-Not-Urgent”. The respective decisions are: “Do”, “Decide”, “Delegate” and “Delete”. Master this.

3. Train More People

The more people around you that are trained to be competent, the easier it is for you to delegate. Aside the fear of delegation, not having a competent hand is the top reason for non-delegation.

Dear friend, you can be more if you can only involve others. Start today. Delegate more. Cheers to you!