Leadership & Micro-Management
A week or so ago, I posted a short blog about leadership. In it, I encouraged aspiring leaders to become more comfortable with delegating.
In some situations, however, a leader does need to roll up his or her sleeves to ensure that s/he gets the deliverable s/he wants. Most leaders would love it if they gave general (read: cryptic) instructions and got the results that they wanted every time. In reality, there is bound to be a miscommunication from time-to-time where it takes more time to give instructions on how to fix the deliverable than it would have taken to just be explicitly clear at the outset.
The key is to be able to identify those situations where step-by-step specific instructions up front are warranted. This requires knowledge of the skills of your team members as well as your track record in delegating to them. But Kelly Services' SmartManager newsletter has a few additional useful tips in their article entitled "When Micro Managing Is A Good Idea."
BTW, SmartManager is a pretty good newsletter. I get it by email as a client of Kelly Services. Nice, concise, useful tips for managers. Where I see relevant articles that can be applied to the purchasing profession, I'll link them here.
To Your Career,
Charles Dominick, SPSM
President & Chief Procurement Officer
Next Level Purchasing, Inc.
Struggling To Have A Rewarding Purchasing Career?
Earn Your SPSM® Certification Online At
http://www.NextLevelPurchasing.com
posted by Charles Dominick, SPSM @ 9:00 AM
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2 Comments:
Yes, but...
In the example given in the Kelly link, and in your comments it is clear that if enough specificity had been included in the request then the results would have been much more appreciated. I submit that the definition of micromanaging is either a) when a superior is instructing one of your subordinates how to do something (jumping layers); or b) when they are instructing you about something such that you are not contributing any unique knowledge or insight to the item but simply 'turning the crank'.
Thanks for the comment. I generally agree with your ideas. But I would add that micromanaging is supervising the work of a subordinate unreasonably closely and giving instructions so specific that they allow only one alternative for completing the task. But I do feel that, for some projects, such granular specificity is required. But if you find yourself having to be that specific for everything that you delegate, you're either a micromanager or you don't have qualified staff.
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