Micromanagement and Delegation

Too much micromanagement and no delegation are the signs of mismanagement and an unhealthy manager. As a person moves up the leadership ladder the need for him/her to get their goals achieved through others becomes one of the most important skills they can fine-tune.

Trust is one of the essential elements in all high performing teams. True delegation is one of the core indicators of trust levels between the leader and the led. If your team seems frustrated and morale is low you may do well to take a good look at whether or not you may be guilty of micromanaging.

Signs You are Micromanaging

1. You've got high turnover. When people can't do their job properly, their talents are being wasted and they aren't learning and growing they'll up and leave. Anyone who is capable and ambitious will not hang around allowing someone to frustrate and block their progress.
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 they find themselves in. The feeling that they can make a difference will have withered up and died and lethargy and apathy have set in
3. Your demotivated team is providing lower quality work. People give up and just decide to go along with whatever you want, simply because it's easier.
4. Productivity, profitability and new business development are all declining. Because you are spending 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 run the business 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 easier tasks at the expense of the bigger, longer range tasks and thinking that drive business success
6. You career progress has stalled. You will not have developed the talent and bench-strength of future leaders within your team so one to two successors are ready to take your place should new opportunities open up.
7. You're burnt out and/or your family life is stressful You work longer hours, weekends etc, simply 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

Be Warned! This is Micromanagement and Not Delegation:

• Only giving out superficial, simplistic, boring, unappealing, tasks
• Nothing of significance can be decided by the delegatee unless s/he obtains approval
• Providing detailed directions and methodologies, thereby limiting the ownership and creativity input of the delegatee
• Little if any chance for the delegatee to learn from completing the assignment
• Taking back the task at the first hint of trouble, thereby failing the delegatee by not allowing him/her to learn from experience
• Requiring detailed reports on how the work will be done
• Focusing on procedural minutia and trivia rather than overall results, quality and performance
• Blaming the delegatee when something goes wrong (Read here how this relates to your level of self-eseem

Turning It Around: From Micromanagement and To Delegation

• Give out assignments that challenge and enable the delegatee to grow beyond their current skill set and which professionally develops them
• Give people the authority to make decisions and deliver the results required
• Spend time with the team understanding the values and principles that the team operate by so that results are delivered in a way that enables the individuals and the organization to walk proud
• When something goes wrong, focus on learning what could be done differently next time and develop solutions to enable the delegatee to resolve the mistake
• Spend time setting goals with the team and planning with them how they might like to achieve the goals
• Establish the criteria by which success will be judged
• Create an environment by which vigorous and open debate of ideas and methodologies can occur
• Set up systems that monitor performance and measure progress
• Build relationships with team members that inspire them to give of their best for you and their team
• Become a better you, through continuous learning and development

The 'snooperviser' is one of the most frustrating and challenging of all leaders to work for.

Please make use of the "From Micromanagement and to Delegation" checklist above to enable your team, your team members and yourself to step into all the potentialities that you could be.