manavpietro's Journal

May 2016
12:23 AM IST

Why Shouldn’t You Duplicate Responsibilities?

In order to create this sense of ownership and pride, a person must feel a sense of territorialism. Though territorialism can also be destructive, a certain amount of it is healthy and necessary. Nothing is more demoralizing to a person than to find that this very important job that has been assigned to him and him alone has also been assigned to someone else.

With responsibility goes authority. When you define job responsibilities to a person, make sure you haven’t already delegated some of those responsibilities to someone else. Occasionally, there will be an overlap or duplication of responsibility between people in different departments. In this case, it is your job to resolve the conflict with your peer in the other department. Under no circumstances should the person working for you be left to battle that kind of problem on his own.

Why do you need to prioritize responsibilities?

The job de scription is one of the tools you should use to communicate the job responsibilities. In addition to understanding the responsibilities of the job, a person must also understand the priorities of the job which are usually not reflected in the job de scription. The priorities of a job, of course, will change from time to time, depending upon the changing plans of the department and company.

Whenever the priorities change, review the changes with the person. All too often managers expect people to instinctively know when priorities change. Keep in mind that the people who are working under you are working with a different set of facts and information. They have a limited view of what is happening within the company and the department. Therefore, they are not always equipped to make decisions regarding changes in their priorities.

Power comes from knowing what to do, knowing when to do it, and doing it in the correct sequence. Make sure the various members of the team understand one another’s responsibilities. This is important, not just to the effective working of the individuals but to the effective working of the team. If the team is to have any power as a group, it must know who’s on first, who’s on second, etc. The power of an individual is decided to a great extent by the power of the group.

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Tags: Best Universities in Canada, University Canada West

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Username: manavpietro

Gender / Age: Male, 36

Location: USA - New York