How to Avoid Micromanaging in Teams

A good leader is an individual who is able to delegate and entrust his team members to achieve company targets. In a corporate environment, sometimes we find a leader who constantly controls and criticizes in detail.

This may be quite good if done in the process of delegating tasks. However, continuously monitoring employee work progress details may feel uncomfortable for employees. The detailed approach to managing tasks is called micromanaging.

Why Should Companies Avoid Micromanaging?

According to research from the University of Southern Illinois, United States, micromanagement is one of the three main reasons an employee resigns. Micromanaging makes employees unable to develop their potential, finds it difficult to trust fellow employees and increases stress.

As trivial as it may seem, micromanaging can affect employee productivity and their morale. In the long run, this can affect employee retention rates in your company.

A high employee turnover rate can increase the company's operational costs. According to the Work Institute, the company bears the cost of 33% of an employee's annual salary that must be replaced.

Traits of a Micromanaging Manager or Leader

There are several features of the micromanaging approach you can take to evaluate your company's leadership or managers. The characteristics below can be used as a guide to change or train them to become effective and efficient leaders.

• Reluctant to delegate tasks
• Feel the task will be better if completed by yourself
• When delegating tasks, always include how a task should be done in great detail
• Difficult to feel satisfied with the work of employees
• Have a tendency to rework tasks that have been completed by employees
• Constantly asking for progress and monitoring employee activities
• Too much emphasis on unimportant details

Strategies to Get You to Avoid Micromanaging

1. Delegate effectively

Delegate tasks to employees who have the appropriate skill set. You can provide opportunities for employees to learn and develop in their position. When delegating tasks, you don't need to explain in detail how to do the task.

Instead, give employees the flexibility to choose the most practical way to achieve the given target. Just make sure employees are equipped with the resources, training, and expertise to achieve that end result.

2. Explain Your Expectations

Sometimes micromanaging occurs because managers or leaders feel that only they can complete a task well. Explain your job expectations to your employees, colleagues or team.

Discuss the deadlines or benchmarks you will use to judge the success of the task. Your employees will do better with the information provided. Tell employees what needs to be done, not how to do it.

3. No Need To Be A Perfectionist

There are many ways to complete a task and everyone has their own way of experimenting. The potential for errors will still occur and this needs to be understood. Your employees or team cannot thrive if you feel that a task should always be performed in the way you feel is most right.

4. Recruit the Right Employees

Ideally, you will hire the right people to work with you. If you recruit the wrong people, such as inadequate skills or inappropriate skillset, you will be more vulnerable to micromanage.

Even hiring the wrong person can cost more money and time to find new employees later. That's why, make sure to choose colleagues with the right skills and attitudes to work in a team.

5. Discuss how to manage according to your employees' preferences

Your employees must have a way of management that is effective for them. For that, you need to discuss it with each of your employees. Having such a two-way conversation makes your employees feel like you respect their opinion and disprove their assumptions about you as a supervisor.

You don't have to leave all tasks to your employees and leave them to work on their own without any instructions or input. On the other hand, you also need to avoid constantly checking the progress of your employees.

Stay in touch with your employees clearly, effectively and efficiently, and give your employees the opportunity to grow. Assure your employees that you are always ready to help.