As the leader of a high-performing team, how you distribute and balance work for members of that team is a critical success factor. It needs to be done fairly. Note, I didn’t say equally. Work allocation needs to be done fairly because you want your team to operate on the basis of equality. You want people to work on things they’re good at, but also do what excites them.

Here are five criteria to think about as you distribute work.

1. Priority

Consider the work’s priority. Priority must drive everything. If you’ve been rigorous in your prioritization process, start at the top of the list and begin allocating work from there. That list should be based on the team and the organization’s goals. This has to be the first consideration in terms of how you distribute work. If a project is a top priority and somebody is available to do that work, they should be tasked with that work.

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