The Power of Losing Control

It is hard leading a team.

Many managers feel the pressure to keep the pressure on employees so they perform optimally. That often leads to negative management behaviors such as micromanaging, issuing edicts, and a rigid commitment to following tried and true methods to achieve measurable outcomes.

In other words, it is a comfort zone for only one person: the leader.

Just spitballing here, but what would happen if you stopped trying to control the employees in your workplace?

Imagine your next staff meeting. You listen as employees give their updates. You give approvals on some initiatives, and ask for more information on others. The meeting goes on as it normally does until you announce that you have an announcement to make.

You ask your team, “What is one idea that you have that you would love to develop?”

Explain to them that you want them to think about that one idea, and that you will meet with each member individualy to listen to their concept. Promise yourself that you will give each idea a chance to come to some form of fruition where the employee is fully responsible and has a certain measure of freedom.

This method works. I know from experience.

Jump in the time machine and head back to 1994. That’s the year that both Friends and ER premiered on NBC. President Bill Clinton was in his second year of his first term as president. We went to the movies to see The Lion King and Forrest Gump. Justin Beiber was born.

Jeez I’m old. But I digress…

In 1994, I was 25 and had my first management job. I was a nervous wreck. I constantly feared making a detrimental mistake. I was a control freak, thinking that I had to make all the decisions and just give directives to my staff. It was an exhausting and unproductive process.

One day, a staff member approached me with an idea. He wanted to start a website for our company. I had never heard of a website, let alone this thing called the internet. For the next hour, I listened as he took me through his idea, explaining how and why he thought it would be beneficial to our company. I asked him if it would…

Related posts:

The internet has roots in the 60’s and 70’s, being used to exchange information between government entities and large companies able to afford infrastructure to network together their computers. As…

I was raised on blue collar work ethic. If work was easy, then it was viewed as less valuable. Hard labour in exchange for money was instilled in my mind growing up. If only someone would have…

Errors may be attributed to various factors. The device may reveal that the message of a Of iRobots Charging errors — Charging iRobot You will find huge demand for goods Braava — iRobot Braava mops…