How to Prevent Micromanagement and Empower Employees

As a business owner, you might be tempted to manage each and every step that’s being taken by every member of your company i.e. classic micromanagement.

After all, everything has to go perfectly if you want to maintain your current streak of success. However, as someone who might have already been through the process before, you know that micromanaging your people is just not going to help anyone.

But how do you stay away from this habit? And how do you prevent other managers in your company from following suit?

Here’s some information that may help!

Understand the Truth behind Micromanagement

What are the faults of micromanaging? Over-scrutiny and major distrust are two factors. Your employees will not like being put under a microscope, especially if you already know that they’re more than capable of handling their work.

Micromanaging will not only lead to a lack of motivation, lack of creativity, low morale and employee turnover, it’ll create a bad reputation for your brand as well. There could be many reasons behind a lack of performance. They could be financial (inability to fulfill an income driven repayment plan), or a lack of good employee experience.

Learn to Delegate

Remove your physical presence from the group, and learn how to delegate. This will be a challenge. But if you consider how lucky you are to have a good team by you, you’ll feel more secure, knowing that they can handle whatever you throw at them.

Start by giving them smaller tasks and observe how they react. Allow your employees to manage things themselves. Document what needs to be accomplished and tell your team members what tactic you want to follow.

Learn to Trust People… and Yourself

This habit of micromanaging mostly stems from your own lack of security in your leadership skills. You worry that you might not be able to lead your team down the right path. You’ll worry about relinquishing control. You’ll even have paranoid thoughts that if you don’t manage everything, your team will ruin things for you intentionally.

Identify these insecurities and work through them by bringing in a mentor or a coach who will help you manage your business. In the meantime, learn to build up your self-confidence. You’ve hired the right people, and you’ve succeeded so far. Don’t let any negative elements influence the strength of your success.

Improve Your Communication Skills

Poor communication leads to poor decisions. Recognize if your communication skills need work, and work actively to be more engaging and clear with your employees. Provide your team with a clear goal. Delegate responsibilities and provide deadlines so that everything one knows what to do. Give them clear boundaries on what resources they have and what is expected of them. If someone needs help, be there to guide them on the right track. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Hillcrest yoga studio manager giving advice to a teacher or one of the best San Francisco real estate brokers giving advice to an agent.

There’s no need to give your employees free reign over their work, but allow them to utilize their own skills and creativity when handling any task.

Let Go of Your Need for Perfection

This is the hardest part. If you truly want to empower your employees, you have to let go of your own expectations and learn to trust that they will do the work assigned to them in their own way. They may not approach their work the way you do, but they’ll get the job done anyway. Keep in mind, your way isn’t the only correct way.

Accepting this fact will be difficult for you since it’ll mean handing the reins of your passion project in the hands of someone who doesn’t approach it with as much zeal as you. But if you want to take advantage of someone else’s work, you’ll need to ease up.

Work toward Creating a Stronger Team Dynamic

You won’t have to manage every single thing if your team already knows what to do. Do your best to create a work environment where every member of the team will want to work together. Highlight their skills and experiences, and empower every person’s efforts and strengths. Take a genuine interest in their ideas, creativity, development, and listen to what they have to say.

Allow every person to contribute, and recognize their hard work. Your team is working hard to make your idea a greater success. Be grateful that you have a dedicated team who wants to help grow your business.

Breaking the Cycle of Micromanagement

Micromanaging is a habit you’ll notice in your other managers as well if you’ve been following the same route. For example, managers will always resort to micromanagement, instead of trying to figure out what is causing the issue in the first place.

Change management styles now, especially if you have a good team on board. Trust your own decisions and understand that with time, your ability to let go will definitely bring about positive changes in the long run!