My wife is a Glennon Doyle podcast listener, and on a recent trip she put her on for a little while. Plenty of good stuff, but the phrase that’s stuck in my head right now is
The intention doesn’t matter. What matters is the impact.
One expression of micromanagement is the inability to sit and let your teammates (possibly) make a mistake on their own. The way I caught myself doing this just now was an innocent question being asked between two teammates for which I knew the answer. I am also on vacation, so I shouldn’t be there. They were talking it out and I jumped in and answered it.
Implicit in this action was that I didn’t trust them to figure it out correctly for themselves. It’s not that I didn’t trust them, but it probably comes across that way and what matters is not my intention but the impact. I’m potentially stunting the ability of this team to think on their own and that is something I am totally grossed out by.
So peace out and do better next time, Self.