Accountability or micromanagement leadership styles can make or break an organization. Have you ever seen the following example occur within your company?
A new employee has been hired. As someone in their reporting structure, you interviewed this person, and they are a great match for the long-overdue new director-level role within the company. This candidate has great ideas and has years of experience managing large teams. They are exactly what you know the company needs.
You are excited when they join the company and are assigned to a Senior Director as their manager. At first, they are engaged and excited, but over time, you see that excitement diminish. Then the unthinkable happens.
Six months later, they are leaving.
What happened?
The answer is simple: that rock star employee was micromanaged.
Your strongest employees are often the first to disengage because they were hired for their expertise but aren’t trusted.
Trust vs. Control
Micromanagement comes from a desire to do well but also from a fear of failure. That micromanager believes that if a member of their team doesn’t perform well, it reflects on them. And though that can be true, if the coaching and support aren’t there for that team or employee, that fear will soon take over, and a micromanager is born.
Let’s look at the specifics of micromanaging compared to an accountability management style, which is grounded in a coaching philosophy.
Accountability empowers employees by focusing on outcomes and giving them ownership over how the work gets done. We can look at it like this:
Accountability: Trust + outcomes = employee confidence and problem-solving
Micromanagement disempowers employees by focusing on the process, removing ownership of both the process and the outcome. Put another way, micromanaging looks like this:
Micromanagement: Lack of trust + processes = employee dependency and burnout
This type of leadership style rarely starts with bad intentions. It often grows out of a desire to ensure quality, avoid mistakes, or meet deadlines. But over time, those behaviors communicate a lack of trust.
Behaviors of micromanaging:
- Requires employees to get their approval for every step
- Correcting every mistake
- Needs constant updates
Behaviors of accountability:
- Coach employees
- Views mistakes as learning opportunities
- Schedules regular check-ins
Shift from Micromanagement to Accountability
The first step is to identify it amongst your management team. If you see any of the behaviors listed above or notice high turnover on a particular team, you have a micromanager.
The good news is that now you know, you can change it. Remember, micromanagers don’t intentionally mean to drive employees away. Their micromanagement tendencies stem from a desire to achieve goals, avoid mistakes, and meet deadlines.
You can begin by coaching the manager using the following conversation starters:
- Discuss the effect on business outcomes, not their behavior.
- Increased customer retention by x amount vs. conducted x number of client calls
- Focus on forward problem-solving, not backward blame
- What are some changes you can make vs how could you let this happen
- Ask reflective questions that tie into their goals:
- How much of your week is spent approving routine decisions?
- What kinds of decisions do you wish your team would make without you?
- Identify and start with one area of delegation
- What would be two routine decisions you are comfortable with your team making without you?
Continue Building Trust
Once managers begin delegating routine decisions and focusing on outcomes rather than every step in the process, they should continue to expand those opportunities. It’s small steps for that manager to know they can trust their team.
Continue working with the manager to increase their team’s decision-making authority while maintaining regular coaching conversations and accountability checkpoints. Remind the managers they aren’t giving up visibility or lowering expectations; they are shifting from directing every task to developing the people responsible for achieving it.
Over time, managers will focus on strategic leadership as employees become more confident, more engaged, and better equipped to solve problems independently. This process helps to teach both groups to trust. The manager will trust their team to accomplish tasks, and with that confidence, they’ll focus on strategic leadership rather than day-to-day oversight.
Changing Micromanagement is a Team Effort
Micromanagement doesn’t define a leader; it defines their style. It’s a habit that has formed over years of managing and carrying around that fear of failure. It is a habit that can be changed.
And that change requires the entire team. That manager will need coaching, and the manager’s team will also need to be on board, as evidenced by the earlier examples, which show the team needs to be involved in the process. Without everyone being on board, change won’t have a chance.
With the right coaching, clear expectations, and a commitment to building trust, managers can transition from controlling every detail to creating a culture of accountability. Their relief will be palpable as they let go of all of that weight they’ve been carrying of worrying about every little detail.
This is a prime example of an organization investing in their employees. When organizations invest in helping managers make that shift, they strengthen retention, increase engagement, develop future leaders, and create a culture where both employees and the business can thrive. And when that manager’s team sees that change, through the organization’s desire to help that manager instead of just outright firing them, the employees see that the organizational culture really is one of learning and coaching.
Need Manager Coaching?
Through leadership coaching, manager development, and organizational consulting, impactHR’s team of consultants helps managers replace micromanagement with accountability. Helping your company build stronger teams, have better business outcomes, and a workplace where employees want to stay.
Are you ready to build a culture of accountability instead of control?
Connect with impactHR; we’re ready to help your leaders make that transformation.
