Micromanagement is a ramification of ignoring best practices in management. People who micromanage lose maximum efficiency, productivity and teamwork – in other words, optimal profitability.
There’s a difference between leading a staff effectively and authoritarian behavior. The latter is one of the common traits of bad bosses.
Perhaps you’ve been the victim of micromanagement while growing up or on the job. Good, then you know the consequences.
To jog your memory:
You’ve suffered from a decrease in morale. It’s hurt your confidence and self esteem. You’re de-motivated. Your creativity is lost. But your parent or boss was clueless.
So if you’re a manager, do you really want to risk the effects of micromanaging your employees?
Of course, you don’t.
If you think you’re guilty of micromanaging employees, you probably are.
Here are six ways to stop micromanaging:
1. Start learning the best principles of employee delegation
Delegation is a fundamental driver of organizational growth. This is one of the hardest facets to learn for many managers. So start thinking about implementing a new delegation approach.
Managers who are effective in delegation show leadership. Save yourself time and develop your staff for the welfare of your organization by implementing best practices in employee delegation.
2. Become aware of the consequences of micromanagement
Micromanagement causes serious damage to your workplace environment. It eliminates trust with your workers and damages their self confidence.
Instead, you should be working toward building individual autonomy, independent thought and professional growth.
3. Assess the strengths of each of your workers
Talk with under-performing employees. Analyze the duties of the person’s responsibilities and skill sets. Perhaps there isn’t a match.
Micromanaging won’t solve such issues. If you believe the person’s duties and talents aren’t compatible, then come up with a solution.
It’s hard, time-consuming work, but managers owe it to the organization to help employees to grow professionally. The organization benefits from higher employee performance and lower turnover. Strong employee retention obviously saves the employer a lot of time and money.
4. Develop communication
Communication skills are critical for managers. However, you probably have inadequate communication with your team members. Perhaps they don’t understand your expectations about their roles.
People with enhanced abilities in communication typically have successful relationships at work and home. Study the management attributes for effective communication.
Good communication must start with new hires and continue throughout their tenure with your company.
5. Implement methods for feedback
Know that each employee has preferences for feedback. As much as possible, treat each person as unique. Some employees benefit from daily discussions. But to others daily feedback constitutes micromanagement.
6. Focus on continuous learning
You realistically can’t hold employees accountable unless they’re given the right tools. That includes training and proper equipment.
Finally, know that you probably learned micromanagement from a former boss or your current one. If you feel your boss micromanages you, delicately deal with it.
From the Coach’s Corner, here are more management tips:
Trust Gap between Managers and Workers — How to Drive Engagement — While it’s true there are companies that are aware that good morale among employees propels profits, many businesses are missing opportunities for growth. It’s not because of marketing. It has to do with internal issues. Why? There’s still a wide gap between what managers and workers think about trust.
13 Management Tips to Solve Employee Absenteeism — Absenteeism causes migraines for a lot of bosses. Obviously, your company will make healthier profits, if you don’t have an absenteeism problem.
3 Crucial Tactics Are Needed to Maintain Your Culture — As your company grows, you can expect growing pains and threats to your culture. Whether you create it or not, your business culture happens. There are at least three steps needed to fashion your culture the way you want.
10 Steps to Manage Conflict for High Performance — For progress, a business needs human interaction for ideas and innovation. Sometimes, argument, debate and conflict prove to be productive catalysts for high performance. But such catalysts can be obstacles to success, too. Here are the simplest ways to manage conflict.
“People and organizations don’t grow much without delegation and completed staff work because they are confined to the capacities of the boss and reflect both personal strengths and weaknesses.”
-Stephen Covey
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