The New Year is a good time to break from old maladaptive patterns and form new habits more in keeping with your goals and values. One possible path is to reexamine your leadership style, and confront a blind spot commonly known as micromanaging.
The cost of micromanagement is staggering in terms of employee morale, turnover and productivity. Still, there are often radically different perceptions involved. A boss might feel that the present level of supervision and direction is appropriate, whereas an underling may feel stifled and unmotivated, viewing the controlling hand as counterproductive and even disrespectful.
You can start to break the pattern of micromanagement by following these four steps:
1. Become aware that it is happening. Many bosses aren’t even aware that their leadership style is an issue. 360-degree feedback can help raise your awareness and carries the major advantage that it is anonymous. Often direct reports are wary of delivering direct feedback, so in the absence of 360-degree data you’ll need to pay careful attention to subtle cues like non-verbal signals as well as tap into backchannel information.
2. Engage in new conversations by asking questions. The problem with most micromanagers is that that tell instead of asking. Early in my career I had the good fortune of working at Microsoft when it was still a very small company. Steve Ballmer gave me excellent direction without micromanaging by asking some really good yet tough questions.
a. Focus on the goal. One of Steve’s favorite questions was: what goal are you trying to achieve through your actions? This simple question would often be a catalyst for me to pause and reflect. Often I would conclude that my actions were in pursuit of some goal that didn’t really matter much, or didn’t pertain to the one’s we had previously established as priorities. By asking this as a question, Steve got me pointed in the right direction without telling me that I was off course.
b. Focus on the data. Another of Steve’s favorite questions was: what’s the data? Sometimes this would lead me to a painfully obvious conclusion: I had absolutely no data to back up my actions. Sometimes it would become clear that Steve and I had different mental models and assumptions fueled by differing interpretations of the data. Simply by asking the question, Steve would begin a dialog to compare our different world-views, and clarify how these alternative mental models could lead to different actions. Sometimes this would lead me to change my viewpoint based on Steve’s understanding of the situation. But in other cases, the discussion was sufficient to convince Steve that I had a command over the details, and having satisfied himself that I was on the right path, he would leave me alone. The point is that Steve’s questions surrounding the data served as a catalyst for discussion, dialog and reflection.
3. Keep the tone collaborative. The tone of the conversation is every bit as important as the substance. If you are trying to break a long-standing hierarchical pattern, you must signal this with your tone and approach. Otherwise, your efforts will simply be interpreted in the context of your historical relationship with your team. Take care to avoid an accusative tone. Questions that sound like a lawyer’s cross-examination are every bit as counterproductive as a directive style, especially when interpreted through the lens of past interactions.
4. Make your deeds consistent with your words. It’s one thing to signal a new beginning, and another thing to deliver on it. Once you go down the path of giving your team more autonomy, you must live up to this commitment. Release your desire to control. Don’t underestimate the power that comes when people regain the autonomy and freedom to set their own direction—especially when it is aligned with mutually agreed upon goals.
Good, concise direction here! Especially like the “focus on the goal” and “focus on the data” – clear things that every leader can (and should) coach people to consider.