MindIt

Being a manager or a leader brings you many responsibilities. Empowering your employees to make them reach their full potential for achieving the organisational goals is one of them. However, while getting your employees to complete the designated tasks with precision, you might also feel a strong inner urge to watch over every step they take. If you do feel so, you are possibly a micro-manager.

Most entrepreneurs miss out the larger goals of the organisation as they end up wasting a lot of their time and energy on the small details which can otherwise be delegated to their subordinates.

Aiming for perfection, they tend to control the entire project solely, not only neglecting their employees’ productivity and affecting their confidence but also impacting their organisation’s long term progress.

Therefore, here are a few ways that can help you keep a check on your habit of micro-management in order to benefit your employees  and your organisation:

• Hire the right people who are not only dependable but also accountable. Employees who seek learning for their own professional growth with their focus on the team goals as well are assets worth retaining. For achieving this, you should review and update your hiring and selection process regularly.
• Create a productive work culture, where employees are accountable to each other. Employees are driven to work with a lot more efficiency when they receive genuine feedback about their performance from other departments, with whom they regularly interact and coordinate.  
• Delegate tasks and responsibilities to your employees and learn to trust them with the job. Identify a few tasks you currently handle that can be easily delegated to someone you trust. Think about the time and skills needed for the job and then assign the task accordingly.
• let go of the small stuff and break the habit of making changes in your employees’ work for the sake of making changes. Sometimes you need to save yourself the time and effort you spend on trivial details to utilise it for bigger things like  organisational objectives.
• Empower your employees to make their own decisions. Your employees will work more willingly and enhance their productivity when they get to speak their minds and make amends according to their knowledge and skills. This will also help build their problem-solving and leadership skills.
• State your expectations clearly such that you do not need to monitor your employees’ progress every other day. Also, communicate to them the goals that you want them to achieve. Evaluate their goals, progress and successes/failures at reasonable intervals of time.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

The art of creating the right balance between the empowerment and accountability of your workforce is the key to achieving success for the organisation as a whole.

The author is Amol Arora, vice-chairman and MD, Shemrock & Shemford Group of Schools