Many newer managers tend to swing wildly in one direction or another in terms of how much control they exert over their teams.
Some go overboard on the “hands-off” approach. They’ve heard about or experienced the problems of micromanaging. What often happens is they show up as overly-trusting managers, not putting in the time to train team members or set appropriate guidelines for how the work should be done.
While direct reports tend to like this freedom at first, it can end up feeling like they’ve been abandoned, left on their own to sink or swim.
But in my experience, most people managers in their early roles tend to swing the other direction—controlling to the point of micromanaging. They exert so much control that their teammates don’t feel trusted. Motivation and innovation sputter as the iron grip of the controlling manager squeezes the spark out of the team.
I was in the latter camp as a new manager, though both are equally troublesome. I’ve been quite transparent about my controlling habits, and I hope it helps others to take a clear-eyed view of their own behavior. When I became less controlling, my team’s motivation skyrocketed! I really had no idea how much I was tamping down their drive to do great work.
After talking with hundreds of newer leaders and peeling back the layers, I have a better understanding of why I was so controlling, and why others might find themselves in the same situation.
Identifying the Underlying Reason: What Causes Micromanagement?
When it comes to micromanagement, the underlying cause is usually (but not always) one of these four drivers:
- Perfectionism. The desire to have everything turn out ‘just so’ can be a core driver of controlling behavior. We might control others to maintain our own high standards.
- Fear of failure. Fear can keep us so on edge that we control others to ensure we don’t fail.
- Ambition. Conversely, a fixation on success or winning might lead us to control others to make sure we reach the goal.
- Lack of delegation. Lots of new leaders struggle to create enough structure to hand off projects effectively. That can inadvertently cause the leader to micromanage the details, because they are the only one who has the knowledge of what’s needed.
Do you see the pattern here? Same behavior. Different drivers.
My clients have found it helpful to identify how the controlling behavior shows up and what might be driving it. Having that awareness is like taking off your blinders and seeing yourself clearly for the first time. That awareness can allow you to start paying attention and choosing a different behavior in those critical “fork in the road” moments.
On the Receiving End: How Control Kills Motivation
If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of controlling behavior, you know how it ends. When people do not have a sense of agency, any or all of the following can happen:
- People don’t feel trusted
- Motivation and morale decline
- Team dynamic goes negative and relationships are strained
- Unrealistic expectations can cause anxiety and fear of making mistakes
- Productivity declines
- Innovation stagnates
- People don’t grow in their roles, which can impact succession plans
- The leader, struggling with delegation, stays stuck in the weeds
Which of these seem familiar to you?
The true irony here is that the leader who controls others probably wants them to feel motivated to succeed. But by exerting too much control, they achieve the opposite result.
Controlling behavior KILLS motivation!
If the real goal is motivation, how do we get there? How do we help people feel motivated?
Well, the truth is that motivation cannot be forced. It’s a feeling that comes from inside the individual. What we can do is create a motivating environment and remove the barriers to feeling motivated.
Finding Your Own “Aha” Moment
In Thriving Leaders Circle, every participant so far has found at least one arena in which they are exerting too much control.
With that awareness in mind, there is a whole module designed to help group members recognize their controlling behaviors and change their habits.
Together, we work to identify what each person can do differently to create a motivating environment within their team. We also talk about how to help individual teammates with different personalities feel more motivated based on their unique drivers.
This module is extraordinarily eye-opening! After spending a month learning and practicing how to be less controlling, motivating your team without micromanaging becomes much easier.
To learn more about the Thriving Leaders Circle experience, schedule a friendly chat with me. I’ll walk you through the program and how it might work for you or for a team member.
Putting It Into Practice
In his excellent book, “Drive,” Dan Pink outlines three necessary requirements for a human being to feel motivated:
- Autonomy: The desire to direct your own life and work.
- Mastery: The urge to make progress and get better at something that matters.
- Purpose: The yearning to do what you do in the service of something bigger than yourself.
Take a moment to think about your leadership role. Are your direct reports motivated to do great work? Are they excited to come to work and do big things? If not, consider what you could do to help dial up their opportunities to experience autonomy, mastery, and purpose in their work.
Confused about how to do this in real life? I understand! It’s challenging to translate the concepts into action.
➡️ To provide more autonomy, use the coach approach to ask more and tell less. Give people more of a voice in what will be done and how. Create opportunities where their ideas can be heard.
➡️ To support mastery, ask them what they want to learn and encourage them to weave those learning opportunities into their role. Suggest training opportunities and help them see how their new skills will allow them to make a bigger impact. Celebrate publicly when you see anyone on the team learning, growing, or gaining new skills. Send a clear message that learning matters here.
➡️ To support purpose, encourage your teammates to identify their values and talk about how those values show up at work. Ideally, everyone should be able to see how their individual work makes a difference. Many people do work that is highly impactful, but they don’t see it. They have tunnel vision and don’t understand how their piece fits into the larger picture. You can help them connect those dots.
If you aren’t sure how to create a motivating environment without micromanagement, being supportive in these three areas is a good place to start!