Have you ever tied your shoes too tight for fear they may fall off of your feet? What happens? You restrict the blood flow to your feet and you start to lose feeling in them. Once you loosen your shoes up a bit, the blood flow returns and you don’t even lose your shoes! But if you didn’t loosen your shoes, eventually your toe nails would grow slower, the hair on your legs would stop growing, and you could even lose your foot. The point is – bad things would happen.
Now think about what would happen if you tried to manage your team too tightly. Rather than trusting your team to complete their work, you micromanage them; telling them exactly what to do and when. You ask for status reports at the end of every day and expect “good reasons” for why something wasn’t complete. Instead of providing resources and guidance to your team, you only look for whom to blame. What do you think the results of running a team in such a manner would be? The team’s output would be very low, employee morale and satisfaction would be stifled, and turn-over would be high. By telling employees how to do what you want them to do, you’re quashing their originality and creativity. And micromanaging them rather than following up with them and providing resources to assist in their endeavors diminishes the trust needed to build a powerful and productive team. This, in turn, would cause your company to suffer.
It can be quite scary being at the top of an organization and feeling like you aren’t sure everything is being taken care of. By trying to maintain control over everything your team is doing, you’re actually losing control. Companies thrive when there’s open communication, a strong foundation of trust, great leadership, the ability for employees to express their ideas and work towards goals they believe in, and systems for professional growth. Create a culture of feedback so your team knows how well they’re doing and what they can improve on. People want to do their best, so trust that they are.
Reach out to me for a conversation on how you can loosen control to improve your company’s performance.