As a boss, you’ve no doubt heard plenty about the hazards of micromanaging your employees. It can serve as a demotivator, crushing morale and leading to high turnover. From TTI Success Insights’ D.I.S.C.: The Universal Language of Observable Behavior, it’s also clear that many personality types simply don’t do well when bosses are too overbearing. It’s important to understand the various traits of your own team members so that you’ll know when to apply a more hands-on approach.
With every personality type, though, there are times when micromanagement can actually be a benefit. Here are a few situations where more intense leadership may be required.
When You’re in Crisis Mode
Your team has missed an important deadline, or your company has suffered a major reputation blow online. Whatever the cause of a crisis, good leadership means helping your team through it. Compliance-led personalities especially benefit from a much heavier level of attention to detail during emergency situations. Put time into preparing all the details before pulling your team in, then assign each employee very specific duties that they can then perform on their own. Set very clear deadlines and scheduled intervals for progress updates.
With New Team Members
In those very early days, new employees need hands-on guidance as they become acclimated to a new job. This is the perfect time to micromanage, whether you do it yourself or have another employee handle it. However, it’s important to know when it’s time to stand back and let your employees start working. When that happens, let the team member know you’re available if there are any questions or concerns.
If Disciplinary Measures Become Necessary
When you have an employee who is struggling, micromanagement may be just what it takes to get the ball rolling again. However, pay close attention to the legal risks of discriminatory micromanagement. In other words, if some employees feel as though you’re treating them differently, it could get you in trouble. Influence-dominated personalities may feel as though they don’t have a good chance to improve if you aren’t communicating how they’re doing when you’ve asked them to improve, though.
Although micromanagement is typically discouraged, good leadership skills include knowing when to apply more pressure, as well as when to pull back. By paying close attention to your employee behaviors and identifying dominant personality traits, you can customize your approaches so that you’re properly motivating each team member to be both productive and happy with the work they do each day.
