More Resources to Support Your 'Rockstar' Leadership Career
Micromanagement
and Delegation
Micromanagement or delegation .. no prizes for guessing which doesn't belong in a high performance team! Here's the warning signs of micromanaging and how to delegate the high-performance way.
Micromanagement and delegation. One belongs in a high-performance team, and the other doesn't. No prizes for guessing which belongs where!
As you move up the leadership ladder, the need to get your goals achieved through others becomes a critical skill to fine-tune. Unfortunately, most of us have a bit of 'control-freak' in us. Let's make sure this doesn't derail your career. In the "Starting Your Ideal Leadership Role with A Bang" training, we discuss the five key behaviors that cause people to derail as they transition into more senior positions. And you guessed it ~ Micromanaging Direct Reports is in that list!
The 'snooperviser' is one of the most frustrating and challenging of all leaders to work for. Let's take a quick look at whether you are guilty of micromanaging ... which will put the brakes on your high-performance leadership journey.
Micromanaging Snooperviser Overview
Constantly checking on people because they need to ensure everything is done 'right'. Quick to correct, yet slow to praise.
Signs You are Micromanaging
1. You've got high turnover. People up and leave when they feel:
Anyone capable and ambitious person will not hang around someone who frustrates and blocks their progress.
Losing good people from your team sends warning bells to your senior leadership team, and this will put the brakes on your career.
2. You've got low morale. People who don't feel they can contribute in a meaningful way lose their loyalty and commitment to the objectives of the organization. When the feeling they can make a difference withers up and dies, lethargy and apathy set in.
3. Your demotivated team is providing lower quality work, with no creativity. People give up and decide to go along with whatever you want, simply because it's easier. What's more, because you've trained your team not to think, not make an effort... because you'll only come in over the top of them ... they will miss, or not bother reporting, opportunities to improve the business.
4. Productivity, profitability, and new business development are all declining. Because you spend so much time 'working in the business', you don't have time to 'work on the business'. You'll be bogged down amongst the trees, and won't have the time to use your creative talents to improve and enhance systems, and create the bright future the organization needs.
5. You are focused on the wrong priorities. Overwhelmed at the volume of work to get done, may cause you to work on the lower-level tasks at the expense of the more significant, longer-range activities and thinking that drive business success.
6. Your career progress has stalled. Nobody promotes people who don't create a strong bench of leaders in their team. Your position description will have something in it about developing people in your team. Snoopervisers don't do this. So you're failing at one of the fundamentals of all great leadership.
7. You're burnt out and/or your family life is stressful. You work more extended hours, weekends, etc, purely trying to get it all done. There'll be an absence of flow in your life because you won't have time to work on the tasks that you love to do and in which your strengths can shine.
Discover How to Easily Delegate Work
Be Warned! This is Micromanagement and Not Delegation:
Turning it Around: From Micromanagement to Delegation
As I explain in "How To Delegate So You Get it Done, Done Well, Done on Time" trust is one of the essential elements in all high performing teams. What, and how, you delegate is one of the core indicators of the trust levels between you and your team members. Dumping unwanted or overflow tasks is not high-performance delegation.
Here's how you can move more toward high-performance leadership:
Hot Tip
Do You Find Yourself Micromanaging Just One Person ...
and delegating well to all others in your team?
This suggests that the problem may belong to the team member. Maybe they have under-delivered, broken promises or aren't quite at the skill level required to hand over the particular assignment completely.
Here's one technique to identify the causes of underperformance and what to do about it
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