Micromanagers or Leaders: Who would you rather be?

Micromanagers: This post is dedicated to the micromanagers within us. The more experience I gain in the business sector, I realize that there’s an ounce of micromanager left inus in a certain shape or form. This discussion is dedicated to finding the ones among us and its relevance in a leadership position,

As a business leader, the first question we must ask ourselves is — What is expected out of me from this role? Of course, there is a natural list of requirements in the form of -> quality of output, timeliness, business priorities, profits — the list continually goes on. Among all these, most often the larger priority goes amiss. This is about the big picture of a business which differentiates whether we are working on the business or in the business as a leader?

And if we are doing so, are we really justifying our role as a business leader? Sorry, this post is not about discussing who or what an ideal leader should be. I will refrain myself only to the topic of micromanagers and the cost of such traits to the overall business.

A while ago, we tagged a discussion about ceding control in a business environmen t. This is not always an easy one to achieve -whether it is a startup or established business, the role of a leader is to step away from the day to day requirements into the overall business vision.

We can spend an awful lot of time in getting into the details/ being a micromanager. We may even be successful in solving a problem or two even better which can give a false sense of satisfaction. But, the real question is- Is that what’s expected of the role of a leader?

1.1 Minimizing Errors

Yes, we should minimize the mistakes as much as possible and ensure that the overall business vision is met. The question we do need to ask ourselves is — Am I really ensuring the vision, mission of the business with the people I work with? Do I trust my team enough to be the beacon of quality we wish to uphold.

I can promise that there will be issues of quality. As an individual, we might be able to fix it and take control over the issue. The wider question is — am I choosing a simpler challenge and escaping the responsibility as a leader? For, the issue although might present itself as an individual occurrence, it can be a lot more if it is a mismatch in culture, or business vision.

2. Micromanagement Vs Business Vision

A business starts off with the lofty ideas of vision, mission and goals. From where I stand, these are really beautiful thoughts — extremely positive and focused.

As a leader, it naturally translates into responsibility of the role to extend the same to their individual teams. If we are not doing that consciously, then we are certainly missing a trick about being a leader. A key trait for a leader is expected to be communication. Although a lot of focus is impressed about vocal communication, a vision is a lot more about the topics of conversation and exercises we are involved in as a team.

2.1 Everyday Demands Vs Strategic Vision

Most often, the question that comes up is — I am so caught up in the daily occurrences of a business that I don’t have time for the vision/strategy. Although this sounds extremely wrong right from the first word, it is the general state of affairs most leaderships succumb to.

How do we stay on top of this? Do we constantly remind ourselves of the expectations of our roles and ignore the pressing problems? What can we do effectively to balance these two aspects and ensure that we still work on the business rather than getting dragged into the unnecessary details.

2.2 Business as a whole

A common guidance to the micromanagers within us is to step out and start thinking about the business as a whole. A constant focus on strategy instead of petty errors or things that distract us appears quite commonly in most literature I come across.

The culprits of time are often easy to spot, if you are a micromanager — some of the common culprits show to be — Asking for too many details, assigning blame, constantly interrupting people, lost in details vs the big picture and a real trouble delegating authority. . Perhaps that acts as a starting point in identify and building that self-awareness as a leader.

Trust and Leadership

To be honest, leadership for me is all about the trust we have with people we work with. Although cliched, it is a two way street. If we don’t trust the team, the team is not going to trust us. It is a conscious effort which demands constant awareness. After-all, the team is expected to look at the leader for direction. If the leader is lost in details of being a micromanager instead of focusing on the bigger picture, it is as good as no leadership at all.

I know , everything I say above is not at all easy. And that’s precisely the reason why we don’t see many great examples in front of us. Of course, we can use that as a statistics to prevent working on our shortcomings. Or we can identify what holds us back from doing our role effectively and work towards that.

Leadership and micromanagement are not the best partners for a business vision. If we can’t step out of the minor details of everyday, we might as well accept that we are being bad leaders.

Thanks for staying with me over the discussion, please do share your thoughts and experiences of being with micromanagers.

Originally published at https://inspire99.com on July 15, 2020.