Pause and consider how you excel in your job. Are you skilled at striking up meaningful conversations with prospects? Are you adept at organizing client meetings? Or maybe you're particularly proud of your creative streak when it comes to developing innovative campaigns? When you succeed as an individual contributor, you'll likely be called at some point in your career to manage others. When this career shift happens, you need the skills, knowledge and expertise to lead others. You also need sharp people skills and the ability to delegate well.

Peter Economy, a best-selling author of more than 100 books, recently shared his thoughts on why delegation is key to developing a manager's mindset. We explore his five steps for delegating effectively in this issue of Promotional Consultant Today.

1. Be clear and concise. Managers must be clear about the task and the outcome while avoiding telling people exactly how to do their jobs. Instead, Economy says it's better to describe the goal and let your team members uncover the best approach. This allows individuals to work in the way they believe is most effective. Managers boost their team's creativity and initiative while increasing their team's self-esteem.

2. Grant the necessary authority. If you're going to delegate a task, be sure to hand over the organizational resources and power to get the job done. Without the required authority, your employees will face more difficulty completing what you've asked them to complete. They may become frustrated and even resentful that you assigned them tasks that cannot reasonably be done.

3. Get buy-in. Economy encourages managers to always get their employees' acknowledgement that they understand the assignments and agree to take on the responsibility to complete them. It's better to address any concerns or questions early on in the project than once the assignment is well underway.

4. Monitor progress. When managers monitor their team's progress, it accomplishes two things: It allows the manager to motivate their team and it helps them catch problems early on. Economy says it's important to know the degree of monitoring necessary for each task and each employee. An employee without much experience might need tight control while looser controls are appropriate for team members who have been on the job for a while.

5. Correct when necessary. If progress veers too far off track, managers must take immediate and decisive corrective action. The first step is having an in-person, verbal conversation whenever possible. Agree on a plan to return to goals and explain the consequences for not getting back on track. If the situation doesn't improve quickly, you might need to delegate the assignment to someone else on your team.

While there are some tasks that managers must complete themselves, the best managers learn how to appropriately delegate to accomplish their mission and goals. Whether you're new to managing a team or you've accrued years of management experience, it's always helpful to refine your delegation skills. By following the steps above, managers can get into the right mindset for delegating and build a thriving team.

Source: Peter Economy is a best-selling author of more than 100 books including Managing for Dummies, Everything I Learned About Life I Learned in Dance Class and User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product .