Who's in the Hot Seat?
Coaching Client: Monica, a high-level Marketing executive at a Fortune 500 media company
Coaching Challenge: Monica struggled with effectively leading her team. During coaching, she admitted that she had a tendency to micromanage and over-control tasks. Her direct reports were showing signs of being unhappy with her and her style.
Monica was feeling fearful that she was getting a poor reputation and that some of her directs might quit. Monica recognized that micromanaging was getting in her way but she was not confident that her team would produce successful outcome without her getting into the weeds.
After exploring what was making her behave this way, Monica realized that she lacked faith in her own leadership as well as in others.
How She Stopped Micromanaging!
During coaching, Monica addressed her fear of losing control. She realized that it stemmed from having poor delegation skills as well as trust issues. She realized that she was delegating in a "do as I say" manner because she did not know how to drive work without getting into the weeds.
Monica deepened her understanding of each of her direct reports' level of readiness for ownership of their work. For those who needed more hands on direction, she began coaching them instead of directing them. For her direct reports who were seasoned, she gave them more autonomy but built in ways to collaborate and check their thinking.
As Monica powered up her own ability to delegate at different levels, she noticed that her trust in her team increased. During a recent climate survey, her department scored significantly high with their trust in her leadership, their morale, and their happiness with being on her team.