Helping teams without micromanaging

Trust is too valuable to hand out easily. It is essential and in the workplace is one of the components that improve employee satisfaction. There is plenty of literature that will talk about how to be a great leader within a team. Most of them will touch on trusting those within the organization in some shape or form.

Here is one of the issues that come with leading teams, if you are new to the group, it is difficult to let the team go ahead and continue to work without getting more involved than what you should be. It only makes sense; you will need to know how things work and see where improvements can happen. Now the real trick is when to stop hovering.

I have yet to encounter someone that has a positive work experience when micromanaged. It is not a great feeling and tends to choke off potential innovation within the organization.  People like to be given direction with the allowance of letting them decide how to get there. Next, is the tricky part, how much freedom do you give them?

One of my mantras is, “Trust is a two-way street; you need to earn it.” As a leader, you have to let the team go and do things while letting them know that you will be paying attention from afar. They also need to understand that decisions made come from multiple sources. Teams should also have trust in what you as a leader is doing. How do you build that trust? Ask for feedback, and not just at the end of decision-making situations. Go to the team and let them in on what is coming down and what direction you are thinking of going. I do understand there might be times where you, as a leader, cannot do that, I have been in that scenario a few times. In those scenarios, I find it best to let the team know what is going on as soon as you can do so. Give them the “Why” things happened the way they did, “How” it all came about, and “What” you are doing to help the team through it. This idea is the basic principle of Golden Circle; this is how you will help get that trust while you are giving them confidence as well.