Delegating is one of the most challenging skills for new managers.

Too many new (and experienced!) managers struggle to give up work and find themselves stressed and overworked.

Is this you?

Effective delegation is essential for effective management.

In this post I'm going to run through some classic signs of poor delegation and help you overcome them.

If you're struggling with your new management role or want to upskill before making the leap, come on our Management Skills for New Managers course which includes a session on delegation.

True leaders lead whether they've been given an official position of power or not.

On our Leadership Training Course, you'll learn that it takes more than just a title to be a leader; it takes courage, passion, empathy, confidence and a whole lot more.

Being able to lead effectively when you're not a designated leader is tough.

It's a fine line to tread between being helpful and being arrogant or egotistical, and this is especially the case with how your boss or superior will react to you taking some of the reigns.

With that in mind, I thought we'd take a look at how to lead upwards, without encroaching on your manager's territory.

This is the sort of advanced people management skill that will really give your career a boost in the long-term.

Understanding Yourself

Analyse your skills

If you're aware of where your strengths and weaknesses lie, you'll be better equipped to deal with others, and dealing with others is the fundamental goal of leadership.

Is communication something you're comfortable with or does it need working on? Are you a confident talker or a thoughtful listener (or both)? Do you lead with charisma or are you reserved?

Asking these questions, and others, of yourself will allow you to get to grips with who you are in a professional capacity, and only then can you begin to lead others.

Good leadership is not just about managing and maintaining what is. Great Leaders need not to be afraid to make mistakes. They need to have the confidence to take risks. Our Leadership Skills training course, will help you develop your outside of the box thinking.

Consider the following quotes:

"640K ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates, 1981, rejecting proposal for larger computer memory.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." - Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" - H.M. Warner (Warner Brothers) before rejecting proposal for movies with sound in 1927.

"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible." - A Yale University professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" - David Sarnoff's Associates in rejecting a proposal for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

It is important not to be confined to the present but to look to the future. Organisations today need to be organic, they need to grow and change. When the movie camera was finally accepted and became main stream, the camera did not move! The actors would run around the static camera like the theatre or still camera. The idea that the camera could move around the actors took a while to develop. To see great opportunities you need good leadership skills. Great Leaders look beyond current practises and markets.

Try this test to see if you can think outside the box! - Draw nine dots to make a square - three rows of three. Try and join the nine dots with 4 straight lines.

Do you need 5 lines?

The correct answer is shown here in this diagram.

Did you restrict yourself - impose the restriction that lines cannot go outside the box. Try not to give yourself self-imposed restrictions that prevent you and your organisation from reaching your goals and developing new ideas that will keep the company growing and changing.

This way of thinking is commonly called thinking outside of the box. Inside the box thinkers are very skilled at killing ideas. For example, Charles H. Duell, Director of the US Patent Office, said in 1899, "Everything that can be invented has been invented."

Great leaders think outside the box by displaying the following qualities:

• Listening to others
• Supporting others when they come up with new ideas and respecting them
• Valuing new ideas and not being afraid to act on them
• Willingness to look at new perspectives to day to day work
• Openness to different things
• Openness to doing things differently

Throughout history there are certain figures who stand out as naturally great leaders. It is always useful for managers to focus on the qualities that made these people great and try to emulate them.

You can learn how to develop these qualities and much more on our leadership and management courses.

We recently gave some tips for managing a start-up but in this post we will focus on the more general skills that can apply to anyone in a leadership position, whether your business is just getting off the ground or you're an established manager with years of experience. And we'll be having some fun with it too... hopefully.

John F. Kennedy - Aspire to Greatness

JFK was perhaps the most youthful, vivacious and daring president there has ever been (and we're not just talking about his extra-marital exploits here).  While this sometimes got him into trouble (*nearly caused the apocalypse) he will be remembered as the man who dreamed of putting a man on the moon, reversing the centuries-old persecution of African-Americans and bedding Marilyn Monroe!

Dare to dream like JFK. Aim for the stars and still land on the moon, aim for Mila Kunis and still land on...actually, I think we'll leave that analogy there. Aspiring towards greatness instills a confidence in your employees in both you, and themselves. Be like JFK. Be remembered. Be great.