OK – we’ve all done it. Decided to do something ourselves because its easier and faster than holding the appropriate person to account. Maybe you’ve even done it with your children. Micro-managing – the gift that keeps on destroying.
Every manager has been warned against this, so let’s look at why it happens, given the most common excuses most managers give for doing so:
It’s faster to do it myself. It probably is faster… the first time. But if you look at the amount of time it will take you to teach or correct someone else in the execution of a task, versus the amount of time it will take you to do it on an ongoing basis, the answer is clear.
I can do it better. You probably can… for a while. However, if you insist on doing every individual task yourself, you will become quickly overwhelmed, and will end up doing some (high) proportion of those tasks poorly.
My people aren’t capable. If this is the case for any amount of time, you are clearly not doing your job as a manager. It is your job to develop people. Occasionally you truly don’t have the right talent, in which case you have to make changes to your talent bench.
I need to keep close to the details. Actually, you probably don’t. As a manager, it is not your job to be expert at everything. It’s your job to create experts, and be able to ask some semi-intelligent questions of them.
If I don’t do all these tasks, I won’t be useful anymore. Listen to yourself. If you’re that insecure in your role as a leader, you need to examine whether you should be in a management role at all.
The bottom line is that micro-managers sap the productivity out of organizations by failing to capture the discretionary effort of their employees. They don’t develop people, which is a primary function of a leader. They also limit their own career mobility by trying to make themselves indispensible in the role they are in.
Micro-management is a self-destructive behaviour, and a great way to get fired. Then you’ll have lot’s of time.