In my leadership coaching practice, I have recently encountered several cases of the close cousin of a micro manager which is the “Micro-Doer”. A micro-manager delegates but then is constantly watching over the shoulder, interfering, critiquing and requesting constant updates. This is highly annoying for the person assigned the work. The “Micro-doer” on the other hand, makes the decision as the leader just to do the task themselves and takes it right off the plate of the direct report. While this is annoying for some, many reports are far too happy for the boss to go ahead and do the task freeing them up to do other things. The impact of this is that the boss becomes over loaded and does not do things that a leader really should be doing, and the team members are not provided the opportunity to learn and demonstrate their independence. The remedy to move away from being a micro-doer is very similar to curing micromanaging. Here is a road map for making this transition.
The first step is to understand the underlying reasons for why you feel the need to do so much yourself. It is usually a combination of low trust, fear of failure and a lack of confidence in your team’s ability. Once you have identified the root causes, work on addressing them one by one.
The path to improvement starts with understanding the role of a leader and this requires a big mindset change. This is beyond a job description, but more of an understanding of the leadership mission and what your value add is to your team. A leader’s role must involve overseeing how the organization is delivering on its mission today while planning for what’s next. You have to collaborate with other key stakeholders to develop your vision of the future, determine how this is communicated and sold to the organization, and put in place a mechanism to ensure that everyone is on board with this vision.
Another huge responsibility for a leader is ensuring the environment in which work gets done within your organization. This involves making sure that communication flows and that people are informed and aligned with the broader organization’s direction. It also involves assessing the organization design and allocation of resources. Lastly, this involves looking at how decisions are made, what individuals and teams are responsible for, and how they communicate. In my last position as a VP, a lot of my time was spent on clarifying priorities and focusing on who was doing what.
Once you fully understand this leadership role, it will be clear that you cannot do all that and still do the hands-on work that your team should be doing. There are not enough hours in the day to allow for this. Many leaders experience early burn out because they try to do too much of the “doing” job and also accomplish what is expected of them as a leader. It is impossible to manage a positive work life balance in this situation. This is particularly a concern for leaders that are promoted from within, where part of their scope includes their previous responsibility. I have seen many leaders make this transition and actually manage new areas of responsibility appropriately while not letting go of certain tasks with their previous department. They did not fully let go of that previous role.
To become a leader, you can’t just delegate everything and hope for the best. This is especially true if your team is programmed to expect you to cover certain tasks. To effectively transition to a more empowered team, a leader needs to make several assessments.
First, you need to assess what projects or activities are mission critical or urgent and where failure would be a substantial problem. These are areas that you will want to stay closer to the work initially. This needs to be an honest assessment though. Would the world really crash if this activity is not done exactly how you want it to be done? What is the real impact of a delay or even failure? For activities that have less immediate impact, you can give more immediate freedom to the team and let them grow. You can even let them “fail” and benefit from an incredible learning experience.
Another assessment is what areas seem to have the people and process in place that are running smoothly. Even if activities for this area are mission critical, you can have more confidence to back off. This is especially true if you feel there are appropriate process controls and metrics in place to flag any drift in performance. On the other hand, if the business process in an area is less dependable, you need to proceed with more caution.
Most importantly, you will need to assess your team. Trust needs to be earned or at least validated over time. It is an unfortunate reality that not everyone can handle delegated responsibility the same. In his book, The Speed of Trust, Stephen Covey outlines the key elements of trust. One requirement for trust is that the person is honest and transparent. Will they tell you the truth about their status and progress? Another key element is that they are competent and possess all the needed skills and knowledge. This needs to be observed to confirm. Lastly, can you trust the team members’ intent and agenda to be aligned with your direction and principles? This is usually something that can be assessed over time by the leader.
Once you have made these assessments and have trust in your team, you need to give them the freedom to do the work. Good delegation means that you clearly communicate expectations of the task. It is best if you can delegate the entire responsibility, but with less experienced reports you may need to break the responsibility into more manageable tasks and delegate those. Your goal would be to increase the delegation of responsibility over time. You also need to determine how often should your team members update you? Do you want periodic written updates or status meetings? You will want to make it clear that you are available if they run into challenges and need help getting past obstacles or need other guidance. From here, it means to let go of control and allow them to make decisions. It can be scary, but it is necessary if you want your team to grow and develop.
Finally, you need to provide feedback. This is how you will help your team to improve and grow. Give them honest feedback, both positive and negative, and help them to learn from their mistakes.
There are a few other potential reasons for micro-doing that should also be explored if you find yourself in this position. Maybe you see yourself as a people pleaser and just don’t want to bother your direct reports with these tasks. To get past this block, you really have to get back to re-assessing your role as a leader. You may also have an underlying insecurity or lack of confidence. Many leaders are uncomfortable with their team members knowing more about the details of a topic than they do. This is a reality of higher leadership that a leader needs to accept. Alternatively, it may just be a bad habit that has developed over time. Just like any other bad habit, it will take some time and effort to break. Coaching can be useful to help build the needed confidence or to get past any mental blocks that are holding you back.
If you can do these things, then you will transition from being a micro-doer to a leader. It won’t be easy, but it is essential if you want to be successful.