Roman S.
Marketing & Social Media Consultant | Operations & Systems Director
Nov 1, 2022
I’ve had my fair share of micromanaging bosses as I’m sure many of you have as well if you’re reading this. I write this with intentionality towards managers that want become better leaders as well as those who may feel that their employees are “special” or “different” and NEED to be micromanaged. Personally, I’m in the camp that believes in truly (and thoroughly) teaching, coaching, and empowering managers and employees to make decisions without someone looking over their shoulders. Let me break this concept down a bit. We need to define what causes people to begin micromanaging. Insecurity. That’s it. TEDTalk over, you can close the browser window now… Or you can read on.
Let me elaborate. The insecurity these managers may feel about their jobs can be either internal or external (or oftentimes a combination of both). The internal stressors pushing them to keep an ever watchful eye on their employees is often due to their own personal beliefs about their capabilities in their role. They may have lied to get the job, embellished their abilities during the interview, been prematurely promoted due to company demands, or simply just not given the proper tools to succeed in a leadership role. The latter is something I’ve witnessed many times across many companies.
Ex. Sales-person Bob is crushing their numbers month after month. They’re capping out their commission on the year well before the holidays and management wants to promote them. They’re great at selling, so they must be excellent management material, right? Wrong!
When we break down what makes a good leader (not manager), we want to have someone who has or is capable of developing new and different skill sets. Empathy, Guidance, Patience, Empowerment, etc. The traits of a great leader will help their employees grow by lifting them up. Without a solid foundation or proper tools to help managers become leaders, we’re dealing with highly skilled people, scared to death by indecision, often due to lack of proper training. Not to mention the threat they may feel of losing their job over something that may not be their fault (thus begins the micromanaging. If I can control all the employees, I can control my destiny). The latter brings us to the external forces brought upon by an organization.
Is the company clearly communicating their expectations, and are realistic goals being set for their managers? Are they dedicating months to training their promoted employee with the new skills that they will need to be successful? Filling a manager’s day with meetings about arbitrary details for future projects or budget details just to keep them busy for 8 hours is not as productive as one might think. Plus, let’s be real, a lot of the info in these meetings could have been an email. The little remaining time they have left to actually BE with their employees is now filled with making sure the jobs are being done as quickly or efficiently as possible. Now I don’t have issues with quick or efficient. I have found however, that it’s unlikely to receive quality work when it’s quick, and on the contrary, efficient isn’t often quick. We can see how insecurity can begin stacking both internally and externally now for managers dealing with a combination of these factors.
So what do we do now? We can start empowering our managers to empower their employees. We have to lead by example and show them what this looks like. A tool I use often in both my roles at companies as well as with my clients, is a reframing exercise for day-to-day small decision making. Instead of feeling like we should explain everything away and tell people exactly how to do something, there’s a healthier alternative in this.
There are some ground rules that need to be set before empowering your people to do this exercise.Some of the most helpful rules focus on the solution still benefiting the organization, a daily budget of allowance, quantity of replacements, top level customer support expectations, etc. These factors will vary based on the role and company, but back to the exercise.
Let’s start to reframe decision-making from the outdated ideals of right/wrong, towards looking at the problems they’re facing as left/right.
When an employee is asked to make decisions and pick left or right, the fear of “wrong” is almost completely alleviated. I ask my employees to make a call, pick a direction, (that follows the rules we laid out) and then ask them to explain their big decisions at biweekly intervals. Why did you choose to handle Customer A’s complaint that way? Why did you decide to give that Client B a smaller or larger discount than the others? In asking these questions I’m being made aware of that employee’s values and morals as well as their thought processes. If the first rule you set is that the decision should benefit the company, the answers you’ll get can look vastly different depending on the person you’re asking. The vague, yet often times essential rule will show that some may view excellent customer service as benefiting the company, some may view the highest ticket sold, and others may play the volume game of most new clients or products sold. Regardless of their way of thinking, as a manager you’re not going to know what they view as beneficial until you witness them being trusted with decision making, and then follow up with them. If the decision that they made wasn’t a “good” one and coaching is needed, that’s ok.
We’re not judging them, we’re teaching them to own the decisions they made and learning from them together.
This reframing exercise is replacing a stuck-ness they may feel that causes them to exist in a paralyzing state of indecision. We’re not going to dive into accountability culture today, but at some point we need to talk about it.
Rather than expecting employees to constantly ask permission to do something, we’re teaching them to make a call, own it, and then adjust if needed. If we’re spending the entire day with elevated levels of stress, believing that our employees simply aren’t capable of doing their jobs without us breathing down their necks, that’s a problem that I believe can be fixed at any level. Decent managers can become great leaders by learning and utilizing this reframing tool. We want our employees and managers to be better informed and make better decisions that can both benefit them, as well as the company as a whole. A great leader will ask questions, genuinely give a shit about their employees, and grow business with the help of the team, not upon their backs.
Genuinely curious to hear what you think about this reframing tool, micromanaging, or thoughts in general about cultivating better leaders!
For anyone interested in practical and applicable examples of rules I used with a national retail chain as well as a local restaurant/bar chain see below.
The rules always vary based on the company, but some notable mentions were;
- If it’s under $100 cost, just do it. (this applies to store repairs, customer returns/complaints, holiday parties for employee morale, paid out expenses, reimbursement for supplies, etc)
- If it makes the customer happy and does not hurt you or your employees, just do it
If a new product comes in and you do not have a diagram for displaying it yet, use your best judgment, get it out onto the sales floor, and make it look good.