Here's what I wrote about micro-managing and motivation last November - who other key M areas:
Today we are a the letter M in #leadership a through z. Two words in particular jumped to mind for me -
Motivation and Micro-monitoring
Motivation: What motivates you as a leader? What motivates your staff? A great book on this topic is Dan Pink's book Drive. In the book he explores what motivates us and proposes that we are motivated by three things - autonomy, mastery and purpose.
Questions to consider:
Looking at ourselves, where do we get motivation from? Is it an internal driver like purpose, or an external driver like money or recognition? Consider your team members - what are their motivators? What can you do to align their motivators with tasks that need to get done?
How do goals support motivation for your team members?
Resources around motivation:
Motivation 123 website - a website dedicated to motivation. You can visit it here
Jim Riley presents various theorists around motivation including Maslow (remember his Hierarchy of Needs) and others. You can read Jim's overview here.
An animated video by RSA based on a presentation Dan Pink gave. View it here.
Micro-management versus micro-monitoring: A common statement in any leadership development training process is that you don't want to micro-manage.
As a former co-facilitator of mine, Doug McLaren, always stated "as a leader you want to micro-monitor, not micro-manage". Micro-monitoring is about being aware of what your team members are working on, and making sure that you are there to provide support, resources and troubleshooting as needed. Micro-management, in contrast, is about taking over and not letting your employees work autonomously. As indicated earlier in this post, what is a major driver of motivation? Autonomy. Consider the implication
Questions to consider:
What does micro-management mean to you? What does it look like?
What does micro-monitoring mean to you? What does it look like?
On a scale of 0-10 (with 0 being none, and 10 being high) where are you as a micro-manager? A micro-monitor?
What support does each one of your staff really need at the moment to be successful with a particular task or project?
Heading off to the December Team Leader Breakfast Cafe in a few minutes to explore Vision - keep your eyes open for the recording later this week!
Have a great rest of your week,
Jennifer
Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010)
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