The Smart Way To Start Your Own Business: How Not To Micro Manage

By Sherry El Kilany On Mar 21, 2013

I loathe micro managing, i dread it, yet for some reason i seem to suffer from it to a certain extent.

I think it comes back to the fact that I panic that our employees may not be able to deliver what i have in mind, so it seems more logical to ride them. Big NO NO and a waste of time on all fronts.

Here are 4 ways to avoid micro managing:

Do not follow people around too closely and inspect everything they do. If someone’s work needs to be inspected or reviewed once or twice, that is acceptable. But if he/she has successfully done this task before, give him/her some space.

Allow your staff and others to make some decisions. You should be involved in the big decisions but they should be able to handle the everyday decisions that are specific to their position.
Acknowledge and accept errors and mistakes as part of learning. Micromanagers will usually punish or hold someone back from a promotion if they make mistakes.
Delegate work to your employees, and let them show that they are capable of meeting deadlines or leading a project.

We Said This: Know these symptoms of micro management: Feeling that you know your staff’s work or jobs better than they do, performing most of your staff’s tasks, rarely praising staff, being overly critical with staff, arriving and leaving later than staff every day and calling in several times a day when you are out of the office.