#18: The Psychology of Micromanagement: Fear, Control, and Leadership Failure

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eric:  Like how they're going and if I can be helpful in any way.

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eric: Okay. Micromanagement usually isn't about control. It's about fear. Fear that if you let go, things  will fall apart, but here's the hard truth. Holding on too tightly can create exactly what you're trying to avoid. Most leaders don't set out to micromanage. They're trying to protect outcomes, but in doing so, they undermine ownership, trust, and creativity within their teams.

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Yeah. And it is such a common trap. I think I would just love to hear from you. How do we pull back the  layers, like what's actually happening underneath the surface so that we as leaders. Can break the cycle?

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So micromanagement essentially is what we fall into when we're afraid that other people won't step up or be able to do something as good as we can do it, or we think it should be done. But like you said, it's a trap. So at its core, micromanagement comes from a lack of trust, either in others. Or in our own ability to lead through delegation  and leaders.

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dawn: Woo hoo. And that is what I always say to pe myself to people that were coaching is like, yes, initially the process of bringing somebody in to do something at, at your radical minimum standard. Feels like a heavy lift. Yeah. But the trade off is flexibility. It's getting your time back, right? It's seeing other people excel at doing something  that you thought only you can do and it is possible.

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Right. We have to teach them how to clean their bedrooms, otherwise we're  gonna be the ones always cleaning their bedrooms. Mm-hmm. And let me just say this to our, listen, if you're cleaning your kids' bedrooms and they're over the age of about 10, stop it. Stop it. No, I wouldn't say, you can say Stop it 'cause you're a mom.

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Why are you taking care of all these things? You have a team of people. How have you not delegated these things?  Well, this person struggled when I first tried to teach them. And this person, you know, is, is still struggling to learn something else and this person, and then you, when you kind of really start to peel back the layers, what you discover is it, it's oftentimes.

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Mm-hmm. But also limits our ability to now create the bandwidth and margin to take on new things. People get stuck in plateau when they micromanage and everybody loses. Right. So here's a, and then we're gonna come back with some practical examples. 'cause I really wanna hear some of the stuff from your family you were gonna share.

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We have to have that same amount of diligence in the workplace to ask those hard questions. Then we as leaders have to choose what I would call an an uncomfortable pathway. We have a tool called the Empower Matrix, which basically just under helps us understand that if we wanna move beyond micromanagement, we need to set a clear vision or expectation for what we want any of our team  members to learn.

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And you, you were testing for your driver's license. 'cause that represented freedom and liberty and independence. And both of my kids, different generation, they got all the social medias and. You know, Snapchat and dms, so they, they can communicate much more easy than we could when we were young. But man, both of my kids, we had to require of them that they  got their driver's license by the time they were 18.

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eric: Because he is just, the  guy knows what he's doing. It's just like easier to let Drew do it. Maybe Drew needs to listen to this. Maybe he's micromanaging a little bit and you're, I'm joking.

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It's coming alongside of people and trying to provide for them what they need to give them the best chance to meet the challenge. Now, let's talk  about challenge. The challenge is what is this new thing I'm trying to learn or grow in or develop in? Right, right. Which means I'm moving beyond my comfort zone, which means I'm gonna feel a little disorientation, which means I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to struggle fumble bumble my way into this new.

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Or we can think of these like the gas and brake pedal in the car, if it's all  gas, where it's gonna run into stuff and then we don't drive anymore. If it's all break, we never go anywhere in the first place.

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eric: An older sibling. We can look back and probably identify how those  persons provided support and challenge for us. That created an environment that gave us the best chance of getting the breakthroughs we need to grow in a new area and to find new areas of success and and development, right?

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I don't need to handhold you, but the truth is, for us to grow in any area, as leaders, we're, we're gonna need support and challenge to stay in that lane and the people that we're leading for them to grow and develop in any area. But if we're not willing to partner people on our teams with support and challenge that's moving toward a clear vision or expectation,  then it's likely that they will sputter.

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What's on the other side is two things. Well, three things. Number one, we've just empowered somebody to do something they couldn't do before. Yeah, and that  is one of the core responsibilities for us as leaders is operating with a developmental mindset for those within our midst. Number two, it now creates margin for us as we delegate a way task, roles, responsibilities, to now free up space for ourselves to begin to engage in new areas that we before could not.

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I want you to do this part of the teaching. I want you to do this part of the coaching. I want you to handle this area of whatever it is we're doing. And as I provide support and challenge,  and as they start to develop their confidence in this particular area, what I often find is they actually do it better than I do.

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eric: And, and what's amazing in, in the developmental kind of mindset, one plus one  does not equal two.

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dawn: Yeah, I, I think that support and challenge is so important in this process that I will say if you are trying to delegate something and it is not going well, you can go back and take a look at those two bumpers and see. Where you are mis calibrating, right? Because if you're all challenged, then you're just creating a stressed environment where people don't know how to do what they need to do,  but they also don't feel comfortable asking for your help.

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And what's interesting when I think back to that  journey, my tendency as a leader is when people come onto my team, it's like all support. You'll figure it out. It's great. Hey, I'm here if you need me. And a very, very little challenge. Very like not clarifying expectations, not clarifying what I want the responsibilities to be.

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I'm on the, I'm on the,  I'm on my own growth journey, but, you know, and then, and that happened multiple times with you and other people like Aura on our team and others where I would just flip flop. Because what, what I wasn't doing was I wasn't clarifying, Hey, what are the expectations for these team members?

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Like, Hey, number one, maybe I need to give you kudos. Maybe I need to encourage you or compliment you or affirm you in something. But  I may also discover in those short. Those short little feedback meetings, Hey, here's an op, here's an area where I feel like maybe we need to be doing a little bit better, or I wanna challenge you to up the standard of what we're delivering on.

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Doing the dishes to them and what happened? Well, now  another distinction that we often make with our clients, Eric, is the difference between delegating and dumping. And so I wanna be clear that really I dumped the responsibility of doing the dishes on my kids.

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eric: so familiar, and I'm sure it sounds familiar to a lot of our  listeners out there.

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dawn: And then we run the garbage disposal for no less than 30 seconds when we're done to make sure that we clear everything out and we're  ready to go for the next time. And and then so I set those expectations. And then I had regular follow-ups.

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eric: That's amazing. It's, it's such a great. It is such a great example, even though it's in your home life, but how this can easily be going on in the workplace, right? We hear all the time from leaders, you know about these struggles with different team members and one, one of the, almost always, one of the first things I try to understand is, have you as a leader taken the responsibility of.

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And then to hear on the other side as you were consistent and patient in that, to hear that wow, they're starting to get their understanding how to do is now that is the process of delegation. To the point where your kids will just know how to do this and  you won't have to think about it anymore. Maybe remind 'em once in a while 'cause we're human beings and we mess up.

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eric: Yeah. Power. Very, very powerful. I love that story. I think most people can immediately apply the principles to any area of their life. That's fantastic. Well, I shared a little bit of one of my examples earlier as it relates to, you know, the enjoyment I've had of training investing in and the delegating coaching responsibilities  coaches, which I've been doing for.

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And what, you know, in this, in particular story that I wanna share is, I'm working with A CEO who's hired this incredibly talented executive team to support his efforts in running the company. And it, it's just an incredible team. And at some point he begins to realize, wow. My executives are, pardon me, really  struggling, leading their, their direct reports.

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I said, well, why don't you just do with your teams what. The CEO is doing with you guys. And they, they said, well, what do you mean? I said, well, how, how is it that your CEO provides this kind of partnership for you to  ensure that you are able to be more successful? And, and how does he provide support and challenge for you, and how does he provide a short feedback loop?

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eric: And so. Your executive teams do not  have the same level of competence on their teams that you have on your team.

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eric: He did this. He started doing it, meeting with them on a regular basis every. For an hour. Didn't always take an hour with the express intention of what's working, what's not working, where are you winning, where are you struggling, and where can I provide greater support and challenge? And what he discovered is, number  one, his executive team was incredibly grateful for that short weekly touchpoint.

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dawn: That's right. I love that. Okay, let's let's transition into some takeaways and maybe some application points for our listeners this week. How, I mean, if you are a leader and  you are listening to this. Delegation is something that you are dealing with on an ongoing basis, so what are some practical things they could be doing?

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And to ask the  question where is there an opportunity for me? To delegate something I'm currently doing to somebody else that would increase the value that they have to bring to this, this space. And then to commit ourselves to the process of partnering them through support and challenge with a short feedback loop.

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You just didn't have the language for it, or people have done this for you. And so what I often find helpful when I'm trying to learn a new skill is to think of who's doing this or who has done this well. That I know of maybe for me, and where have I already kind of done this? And then to lean on those experiences to help shape and fill out  this this, this framework of support and challenge that we're talking about.

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eric: Yeah. Yeah. I love it. That's so good. I have so much more I wanna say, but we're gonna pause here. Thank you to our amazing listeners. We love  having you. We love the opportunity to share our own journeys with you and what we've learned and what we have found works time and time again with those.