Jim Schleckser is the Founder and CEO of The CEO Project, a firm that builds advanced advisory groups for CEOs of high-growth companies.
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I hate being managed. I hate people telling me what to do and getting into my business. Whenever someone feels the need to look over my shoulder and check on what I’m doing, I feel like they don’t trust me.
While it’s understandable to dislike being managed, we all need some guidance at times. The crucial point is to strike a balance between providing oversight and micromanaging. This balance is not just about respecting autonomy, but also about fostering trust and empowering employees.
Let’s talk about how to get it right.
Leading Versus Managing
Providing oversight is one of the critical roles that every leader plays. You leverage your experience to assess what people are doing in their jobs and whether they are heading in the right direction. Your job as a leader is to step in and offer course corrections only when needed. You are ultimately responsible for the outcomes of the organization, so you cannot totally disengage.
As a leader, part of your responsibility is to check in with your team regularly. However, this is not about monitoring, but about coaching. In my book, Great CEOS Are Lazy, I emphasize the importance of leaders engaging in open dialogues and discussions to help their direct reports grow and improve. This approach promotes a supportive and collaborative work environment.
This might mean asking employees questions like: “Do you need help with anything?” Or “Are there any roadblocks I can help with?”
One common mistake leaders make is micromanaging, which involves monitoring and critiquing every action of their employees. This behavior, often seen in managers who have previously held the same role, can be detrimental. It not only wastes time but also erodes trust, accomplishing very little other than damaging the relationship between the employee and their manager.
Finding the right balance can be difficult for some leaders. I recently worked with an organization where the leader went in the opposite direction when he delegated all the staff assignments. To be clear, a leader’s job is to remain involved and to provide key oversight without stepping too far into the weeds of micromanaging.
A phrase I have found to perfectly capture this balance is often applied to board members: You should have your nose in but your hands out of the business.
Who Would You Rather Work For?
Throughout my career, I have had the opportunity to work for some great leaders and the curse of working with more than a few micromanagers.
The best oversight leader I ever worked for had experience working for a large multinational corporation. He looked at the numbers to see how I was performing, but only to offer me guidance and suggestions when I asked for them. Just as importantly, he never questioned my decisions—even in cases where they seemed risky or that he knew might not work out.
But by trusting me and only stepping in when an issue was critical and below the waterline, he helped me build confidence, and my performance grew exponentially.
I can contrast this with another manager I had who questioned every decision I made. He also liked to offer an opinion on everything, no matter how insignificant it was to the business's operation. This guy also prided himself on how much information he could digest on our operation. But guess who had to provide all that information? Me.
Since this boss wanted constant updates on everything, I wasted inordinate amounts of time gathering information for him that I could have spent productively on other tasks.
Worse, the constant questions and critiques began to affect me personally. I wondered if I could even do the work if my boss needed to keep such a close watch over me. It damaged my confidence and felt like a lack of trust. I don’t think that was his objective; he loved getting all the data, but the damage was nonetheless done.
Eventually, I left that job—and that boss—which was the best career move I ever made.
Check Yourself
In your role as a leader, you need to balance providing enough guidance and oversight for your employees so they can thrive and grow without falling prey to the mistake of micromanaging the details of their working lives.
Micromanaging your employees can not only fail to develop them to their full potential but also stunt your own growth as a leader. It would help if you made your time count where it matters most.
That’s what truly sets great leaders and CEOs apart from everyone else.
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