Hey there, friend, welcome to Mak TV.
My name is Mak and I am a leadership and team building coach,
but specifically for first-time team managers. So in today's video,
I want to talk about something very important and that is of course,
micromanagement. You see,
micromanagement is something that is quite an issue in the workforce,
and there is a lot of information out there in terms of how you can
handle as an employee you're micromanaging boss, right?
So there's a lot of information in terms of how to deal,
how to handle a micromanaging boss.
But there's not so much in terms of like information for the person who
is the micromanager. And I think that if we really want to solve this issue,
because it is a big issue,
then we have to start talking about it and raising the level of awareness for
people so that if they see that they are displaying these micromanaging
behaviors, that they can make a pivot.
So that's what I'm going to be talking about today.
I'm going to break down just five, um,
pretty obvious signs that, uh, you are micromanaging your team. Okay.
So we're going to talk about the five signs of micromanagement.
So let's dive into this.
So one of the first signs of a micromanager is actually a highly dependent
team. Now because of the fact that a micromanager needs to literally control
everything within their atmosphere,
the message that they send to their team members is that everything needs to go
through them. And so as a result,
they become kind of the bottleneck of their department. And a symptom of this,
the symptom of being the bottleneck and expecting that their team members go to
them for everything is that their team members become heavily reliant on
them. And you know,
this has nothing to do like a team that is heavily reliant on its leader,
has nothing to do with that team's work ethic.
And that team not wanting to take initiative.
And everything to do with the environment that that micromanaging boss has
set. They've stated or dictated that they expect that they come to them for
everything. And so the team is going to follow that lead and do exactly that.
So if you want to know whether or not you are a micromanager,
one of the things I want to challenge you to do is just to take a step back and
ask yourself, like, look at your team and ask yourself,
do I have a bunch of highly dependent, you know, team members?
Or do I have a team that is extremely empowered to make decisions and to run
with the ball as needed? Um, and then another thing too, is like,
if you have found yourself in the past saying,
why doesn't anyone take initiative around here?
Why doesn't anyone have solutions to some of these problems? Well,
that's another surefire sign that, you know,
you've created an environment where people feel like they have to go to you for
everything they're extremely dependent.
And so they're not thinking on their own and they're not taking initiative
because you're basically cup holding that and taking that away from them.
So that would be the first sign of micromanagement.
The second sign of a micromanager is actually that their teams lack direction.
And I would take it a step further and say that their teams actually have no
idea why they do what they do. They just do.
And that's often because of the fact that a micromanager is so steeped in the
day to day, right? They are in it every single day, doing the work.
Rather than doing what their actual job is and getting above it all and focusing
on the people process and goals. And so they are not developing their people.
They are not creating vision, which, you know, creates strategy.
They don't have a clearly set of defined goals. And I mean,
how could they have time for this stuff? Because that kind of stuff takes time.
And if they're so focused on the tactical day-to-day then they actually,
yeah wouldn't have time to focus on the bigger
picture and helping their team members achieve consistent,
outstanding results. So my question to you,
if you're wondering whether or not you are a micromanager,
is where are you spending your time?
Because the answer to that question would really indicate whether or not you are
a micromanager or not.
So are you spending a lot of your time in the day-to-day operations?
Or are you spending a lot of your time in the bigger picture stuff?
So does your team have a vision?
Does your team have specific metrics?
Do you have a strategy to reach the results you're looking for?
Does each team member have a metric that helps them track their progress towards
the goals? Do you have a clearly set a defined goals?
If you can't answer any of that, then chances are,
you are far too much in the day-to-day operations.
Micro-managing people's every move. Listen,
I know management is hard and anybody that's in it knows just how hard it is.
And especially if you're being tapped into to help your team members do
something.
But what you need to know is that the reason you got a promotion and a pay raise
and all that stuff isn't so that you can do your individual contributor work
better and be in the day-to-day it's so that you can get above it all and help a
group of people do better and reach goals that they never thought imaginable,
right? So you do have to get out of the day-to-day as soon as possible.
Um, and focus on the things that you're actually getting paid for.
And this is why I actually created my guide,
which is called the ultimate guide to being an effective team leader,
because I walk you through five of the most critical skills that you need to
develop as a new manager. And one of the first, um,
you know, kind of call-outs that I make within this guide. Um,
it's on page four is the number one mistake that a lot of new
managers make,
which is just not making that transition from individual contributor to manager,
which is oftentimes, um, you know,
part of the issue when it comes to micromanagement. So I want to encourage you,
uh,
to find the link in the description box below so that you can download this free
guide. It's 22 pages, it's interactive,
and I promise you it'll help make you a far more effective team leader.
So I want to encourage you to download that okay?
The third sign of a micromanager is someone that leads as an expert
rather than a generalist.
And this is particularly dangerous for a first time manager.
And that's because you're fresh off of, you know,
being an individual contributor where you were expected to be the expert and
moving into a manager role where you're expected to be the generalist. Now,
the distinction between the expert and the generalist is very important because
an expert, right, is usually the one that has all the answers.
They're usually able to define exactly or detail exactly how something
should be implemented.
Whereas a generalist is not really worried about all the finite details.
They're worried about defining the why and the what,
and having the team define how right.
They're empowering their people to get from point a to point B.
They're just helping them see, you know,
where they are and where they need to be. And so for you,
if you're wondering whether or not you are micromanaging, I want to ask you,
are you leading from a place where you are still an individual contributor
or an expert dictating to people how things should be done?
Because if you are,
then that is a really big sign of being a micromanaging boss.
The fourth sign of micromanagement is actually closely tied to what I was
talking about with being the expert,
but it has a little bit of a twist because I find that a lot of
perfectionists actually fall into this trap of, of micromanagement.
And it's not purposeful, but it does happen.
And that's just because they're constantly striving for perfection.
And so while the perfectionist might give their team a little bit of
wiggle room to do things they're constantly checking in and they're constantly
tweaking and they're constantly changing things just so that they can get that
much closer to this idea of perfection, right?
And so if you know that you have this tendency to be a perfectionist,
or if you've gotten feedback in the past that you're a little bit of a
perfectionist,
then I want you to be aware of this because it does often play itself out in the
workplace as micromanagement. And so just be aware of, of how it's coming off,
as well as how it affects your team.
The fifth sign of micromanagement is actually a failure to delegate.
And so if delegating is actually a challenge for you,
then I want you to ask yourself why that's the case? Like,
is it because you don't necessarily trust your team members to reach, um,
your desired outcome? Is it that you don't know how to delegate?
Is it that you don't know what exactly you should be delegating? Um,
is it that you feel like it's just faster for you to do it yourself? Um,
and you feel like delegating takes too much time.
Like whatever your reasons are.
I want you to know that it all kind of funnels into like one of two
places.
Either you fail to delegate and you end up trying to do everything
on your own and, you know, stressing yourself out and,
and overwhelming yourself, or, um,
you failed to delegate properly and you end up micromanaging that
person's every move because you know that you haven't done it properly.
And so whatever those two reasons are,
I think it's important that you either A get comfortable with delegating and
learn how to do it properly,
or B you learn how to do it properly and follow a process or some sort of
system so that you're not suffocating people through your micromanagement when
you hand off something to them.
And this is why actually in my new manager accelerator program.
Part of my framework is actually to help you learn my three-step process to
delegating so that you can always get the desired outcome you're looking for.
But not in a way where you're micromanaging people,
because the problem with micromanaging people, when you delegate something,
one of the problems is that you're actually hampering their ability to do it
really well because they're actually stuck on your
ability and not their ability.
So they can't think past you because you are micromanaging things.
So you actually might end up not actually,
you always end up with better results when you leave it to your team members,
because they are, they are actually the experts.
But what you end up doing is you,
you get kind of like good results when you micromanage
it because they're, they're hampered by your ability. You know what I mean?
And so it's very, very important to learn how to not just delegate,
but delegate properly so that you're getting the outcome you're looking for.
So that's pretty much it in terms of the five signs of micromanagement.
And so if you, as a team leader,
want to make sure that you are not a micromanaging boss and I highly suggest you
check out the details of my new manager accelerator program,
because the entire program was designed in a way to help you be an effective
team leader, which as we know is the opposite of what a micromanaging boss is.
And so if you're interested, which I think you should be,
then definitely go to my website,
makedaandrews.com to check out more details about the new manager accelerator
program and how you can join, um, and get yourself enrolled. All right.
So thank you so much for watching this week's episode. I hope you enjoyed it,
and I hope you found it valuable. I hope you have a fantastic rest of the week.
Do not forget to keep smiling and I'll see you in the next one.