Empowering and encouraging: how the 'coach' approach can counter micro-management

It's natural for leaders and managers to fall into the trap of micro-management, but it's crucial to get out of it for the sake of the team and productivity. What's the alternative? Adopt a "coach" posture. This means stopping telling employees what to do and giving them the means to come up with their own ideas. Training courses are available, but managers can acquire key coaching skills on their own quite quickly.

Here are the key ingredients for developing your coaching skills:

1. Empathy: the basis of trust

Empathy is the cornerstone of trust and good relationships at work. Once neglected, it is now an essential leadership skill ("Empathy in Leadership: Appropriate or Misplaced? An Empirical Study on a Topic that is Asking for Attention", by Svetlana Holt and Joan Marques, Springer, 2012).

Employees expect their company to care about them. Leaders and managers are the primary representatives of this. First and foremost, it is crucial that they learn the codes of empathy, distinguishing between appropriate and inappropriate gestures. Investing in practical training will enable them to put this benevolence into practice effectively.

Empathy is not an innate gift, but a skill that can be developed. While the principle is simple (put yourself in the other person's shoes), putting it into practice can be tricky. What's more, managers tend to keep their personal and professional lives separate, relegating empathy to the private sphere.

Here are a few things you can do to move towards a more empathetic approach at work:

• Listen carefully and let the other person express themselves;
• Ask sincerely about the other person's well-being, without settling for boilerplate formulas;
• Ask questions about feelings: "how do you feel?" rather than "what do you think?"

2. Let others find their own solutions

Micro-management consists of telling others what to do. "Coaching" could be defined as letting others find their own solutions.

Leaders and managers often tend to pride themselves on their ability to solve problems and find answers for others. However, the best way to develop coaching skills is to understand the fundamental difference between micro-management and coaching: rather than giving answers, it's about letting others find their own solutions.

Remember that even if you present a "perfect" solution as a leader, it's still your way of doing things. Individualisation is the key. The idea is to offer solutions tailored to the circumstances and situation of each team member. In fact, creating a personalised path is more motivating than following strict instructions. What's more, innovation and creativity can only flourish if individuals are encouraged to put forward ideas. People who have in-depth knowledge of a subject (often more than their manager) are also in the best position to come up with new and workable ideas.

3. Techniques for listening, questioning and setting objectives

Active listening, the art of questioning and the ability to set clear and motivating objectives are the fundamental skills of a "coach" posture that every leader should strive to develop...

Pour lire cet article en français dans son intégralité : rendez-vous directement sur hbrfrance.fr

To read Julia Milner's most recent column "Are You a MicroManager?" in HBR (USA) : follow this link

Photo by Nguyen Thu Hoai on Unsplash