Delegating tasks to well-developed subordinates and holding them accountable is your best bet in gaining the scale required to dominate each market niche, but that doesn’t mean there is no micromanagement going on from above.
First of all, employees find it convenient to label almost any managerial intervention derogatorily as “micromanaging.” But don’t get sucked into the negativity that this term may imply.
The job of subordinates is to pursue corporate goals by participating in their development at the direction of their supervisors, not negatively questioning or criticizing their “superiors.” This mandate includes the necessity for employees to be nimble and to be prepared to shift directions whenever current market data and momentum suggests it’s time. While you may be on the same team as your boss, he is held accountable to shareholders and therefore has to make the final decisions.
So if your boss wants to review the fine points of your corporate initiatives, it is her right—more importantly, her duty— to understand the details of the business and re-direct efforts whenever and however she deems appropriate.
If this is labeled micromanaging, so be it. Successful companies delegate and depend on as many employees as necessary to manage and evolve every business segment independently, and to the best of their abilities. But at the same time, they have leaders who elicit information from their ecosystem that form the basis to make fast, educated decisions, which can’t always be perfect.
It may sound like a paradox to have a business that both delegates and micromanages, but it’s a matter of the areas to which each is applied and the degree to which it’s done.
