Free Delegation Case Study Sample

Delegating authority is a very complex decision that has to be taken by managers. In this case Mary made a decision to delegate authority to John Links. Mary’s decision was based upon Link’s position as Senior Research Analyst at the company. Her decision to appoint John Link as her temporary replacement was a good decision overall. Link was able to manage her department effectively but at the expense of his own work. This suggests that John Link was unable to multi-task and while performing Mary’s duties he ignored his own work.
Mary did not clearly specify Link’s area of responsibility and empowerment. This was one of the reasons Link ended up doing more than that was expected of him. John Link’s decision to recruit a statistician might be a fruitful one but Mary did not expect him to make a hire without her knowledge. Before leaving, Mary should have made it clear about what kind of decisions could be taken by Link while she was absent.
Delegation responsibilities are normally given to people below one’s own level. According to this viewpoint, it would have been wrong of Mary to ask her boss to delegate. However, if Renee was asked to fill in for Mary then none of the decisions taken by Renee would be questionable. Mary would trust her boss to make the correct decision due to her experience and position. Delegating to Mary would have also ensured that Link completed the report which he had been working on. On the other hand, delegating to Renee had its drawbacks. One of them could have been, due to Renee’s seniority Mary might not have been able to hold her accountable for any decisions made differently to her own liking. Whatever Renee did would have to be accepted without further questioning. Hence, to sum it up Mary made a good decision of delegating to John Link.