Step four is all about overseeing the delegation. It's about monitoring and supporting the person who's doing the work. And the key to it is providing support, providing appropriate guidance without stifling creativity, enthusiasm, and motivation, need to show that you're supporting them and show that you're trusting them at the same time. So, part of the secret, I suppose, is to make yourself available to be there often enough, but not so often. Show your enthusiasm to help them and be there to answer their questions. It's a little bit like being a good parent or carer.

And just as with children, it's important to understand The value of mistakes in the learning process, because I'm guessing that you got to where you are by making some mistakes along the way. And if you're like most people, you probably learn more from the mistakes that you made from the things you did, right. So your job as a manager, a supervisor or leader, is not to stop people making mistakes, is to stop them making the wrong stakes, and to help them to learn from the mistakes that they do make, to harvest them for the knowledge and understanding and wisdom they can generate. So, check progress regularly, if not necessarily frequently, and give all of your encouragement, praise and support. I've said that trust is a crucial part of this. So how do you demonstrate trust?

You do so by listening Well, by being honest with them, when you're with someone to provide them with support and guidance, the key is not to inject your ideas into the process unnecessarily, but to listen to them to listen to their questions, to ask them questions and to listen to their answers and to help them to figure it out themselves. For trust also comes from honesty, which means that good, honest feedback about what's working and what's not working. And how well they're doing is vital to building trust. And there's a whole spectrum of styles of support, which you can call upon. Let's look at six styles on that spectrum, from minimal support, to maximum support. At the minimal end, we've got consent, affirming that what they're doing is right and giving your support to that.

Then there's offering feedback on what they During the choices that they're making, next, there's coaching, asking them questions and helping them make decisions for themselves. Then there's mentoring. This is where you inject into the process some of your experience and knowledge and learning, not in the form of instruction, but in a form, perhaps an anecdote and recollection of relevant experiences, to help them to identify things that are going to help them to solve the problems for themselves. Next comes guidance. And now you're nudging them ever so gently in the direction of solutions that you know will work. And finally, instruction.

We're not nudging gently, you're telling clearly what it is that they need to do and how they need to do it. But be careful you don't go beyond instruction to absolute direction. Do this or else because that kind of invalidates the process of delegation. Clearly, a lot of that distinction is around the style with which you instruct or direct. But you have that scale, you have that spectrum of six usable approaches. Select wisely.

And the more you can trust someone and move to the lighter end of the spectrum, the more effective you'll be at developing that person's thinking, developing their skill set, and helping them to learn and understand the task for themselves.