How to Ditch Micromanaging and Empower Your Employees

As a founder, it might be difficult for you to let go and let your employees do their jobs without peering over their shoulders and dictating their every move. But that’s the fastest way to create a harmful workplace culture. Here’s what you need to know.

Key Takeaways:

• Micromanaging is when a boss controls every part of an employee’s work.
• It has a place in certain circumstances, but only sparingly.
• Empowering employees is a much more effective strategy.
• Several techniques can help managers ditch micromanaging in favor of empowering techniques.

Micromanagement happens when a leader watches over and controls all actions employees take. Micromanagers believe they know best, and no one can make the correct decision without their input. They exhibit extreme authority and attention to detail. While businesses need control and careful management to thrive, too much can be harmful in many ways.

The flip side of this managerial coin is empowerment. Empowerment at work means giving employees the resources, independence, and support necessary to take ownership of their work, experience personal growth, and make decisions that contribute to the company’s success.

Micromanagers lack trust and communication skills. As opposed to empowering managers who exude trust and use their refined communication skills to strengthen their employees by delegating work, encouraging employees to be accountable, and how to use their vision to help the company, and their place within it, grow.

When I began my transformation, I realized how much of my learning I could apply in the workplace. I work hard to ensure that my teammates find ways to use their personal values, ethics, and talents in our environment every day.

This article explores the major differences between micromanaging and empowering and offers three excellent alternatives to micromanaging to help your company reach the next level of success.

Micromanagement vs. empowerment

Every business decision comes with a modicum of risk, but leaders must trust their employees to make decisions that will be good for the company. A thriving company culture is accomplished by workers who feel valued. Understanding the impact of micromanaging versus empowerment requires a comparison of the two styles on business’s most crucial factors.

Profit

It’s expensive to scrutinize and closely examine a subordinate’s performance and work. Micromanagers focus their energies on somebody else’s job. A manager’s job is to remove impediments to employee productivity — creating them isn’t in the job description.

Overbearing managers cause increased employee turnover, which affects profits. Employees who feel micromanaged don’t engage with others or their work and typically become discontented and leave the company.

Company culture

Trust is indispensable to company culture. Micromanagement kills employees’ pride in their work and showcases a lack of faith. On the other hand, empowerment nurtures a culture of trust. It rejuvenates creativity and ingenuity in the workforce.

I have felt strongly about an inclusive and thriving company culture ever since I saw what it could accomplish during my own transformation. I consistently look for ways to showcase the wins and accomplishments of my team, and so can you.

Process

Empowerment fosters initiative and innovation. There are moments when leaders must micromanage crucial tasks to ensure everything goes according to plan, but not often.

Sometimes risky situations occur, which require a heuristic style from managers. When employees can make decisions concerning their work, they devise more effectual processes that can improve their job performance.

Product

Micromanagers have sharply defined ideas about how to perfectly develop a product or service, often stifling creativity and discouraging employees from throwing in their opinions. Independence among staff intensifies creativity, resulting in more ground-breaking ideas.

People

Observing and directing an employee often helps improve their performance, and this type of control is necessary when dealing with poor performance. It should be a short-term situation, however.

When employees don’t perform at a suitable level to work autonomously, they probably aren’t a good fit for the company. Empowerment positively impacts motivation, which leads to improved performance.

While there are a few moments when micromanaging might be beneficial, it certainly isn’t very often. It’s far more profitable, engaging, and productive to incorporate a more openhanded management mode. The good news is that doing so can be pretty simple.

How micromanagers can become empowering leaders

Keeping everyone on task and doing their best is difficult using any managerial style, but if you’ve ever been micromanaged, you know how difficult it is to do your job effectively, feel inspired and engaged, and be proud of the results. Micromanaging also turns you into a tyrant in the eyes of the people you spend all day with.

Making a move from tyrannical boss to motivating leader is easier when you employ a few simple tactics.

Set expectations based on the outcome and not the process

Pay attention to how you speak to your teammates about your expectations. Try not to spell out the whole process; instead, just relay your desired results and any pertinent information needed. Allow your employees to devise their own approach to achieve the desired results.

Use feedback correctly

Feedback isn’t only valuable after a project’s completion. In fact, it’s most beneficial when employed throughout the process.

Regularly touching base with your team at intervals during the project helps keep everyone on track and informed. It allows everyone to see where the project stands and discuss any necessary changes.

Incentives

Incentivizing your employees is a tactic used in all sorts of venues. Parents, teachers, marital partners, and even the government use it to encourage others to follow their lead.

Incentives don’t have to be cash. Vacations, long lunches, days off, and tokens of appreciation all work well. Get to know your employees to better understand which incentives would be best.

You can employ any tactic that clears away authoritarian and tyrannical governances to help you move from micromanaging to empowerment. The goal is to encourage free thought and creativity.

Micromanaging has a place in company culture, but it should be few and far between. Employees must have a space where their ideas, work ethics, and personality are valued to provide the best work possible. You are just the leader to do it — and you can start now.

Learn more about transforming your managerial style

Using your personal transformations to get ahead in business is a strategy many people overlook. My life’s purpose is to help people live more holistically and find their true power in personal transformation. Check out my LinkedIn and Twitter pages to see what personal transformation looks like firsthand and learn more about what it can do for you!