Are you helping or are you micromanaging? How leaders can avoid overstepping
Have you ever walked away from a situation thinking that you handled things really well and were really helpful, only to find out later that you were actually the opposite of helpful?
I certainly have. In fact, I’m thinking of a time when this happened not too long ago. I was in a meeting with my team, and one of the items on our agenda was a challenge they wanted to address. Assuming they needed my help and guidance, I basically took over this agenda item and brought it to a solution.
I left that meeting feeling confident that I’d been helpful to my team. But later that evening, I got a voice message from Monique, our Chief of Growth, who I can always count on to be real with me. She gently told me that I had, in fact, not been helpful at all: I had overstepped, and as a result, I had made her feel like I didn't trust her to find a solution on her own. She had been sure that she and the team could’ve figured it out, but when I stepped in, it made them question whether I thought they were capable of doing it without me.
I felt awful. Of course, I never intended to make her or the team feel that way. I very much trust them to solve challenges on their own.
I think one of the hardest things to navigate as a leader is how to walk the line between overstepping and under-stepping. Ideally, we want to be right in the middle, but inevitably, we get it wrong, like I did in that meeting. To me, overstepping means we get a little bit too involved in something, to the point where we make people feel micromanaged. Under-stepping means we think we're empowering people and staying hands-off, when really, our people need our help and guidance. This is one of my biggest personal struggles as a leader, and sometimes, I feel very insecure about how I walk that line.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what causes leaders to overstep and insert ourselves. I think that part of it is well-intentioned: We want to be helpful, valuable members of our teams. And another part of it could be ego. Maybe we like being needed, or we think that our solution is the best or the most helpful because we have a lot of experience. For me as a business owner, for example, I went from wearing every single hat in the business and doing everything on my own to having a whole team of people working alongside me and becoming very hands-off. All of a sudden, the team no longer needed me. The journey to this version of my role was kind of confusing. It’s like, well, wait, what's my role now? When do I chime in and offer a solution? When should I step in and help? What do you mean people don’t need me?! And I know I’m not alone: Friends of mine who are leaders struggle with the same thing. It's a topic that comes up a lot in our mastermind groups.
For me, I know it’s a mix of both: Sometimes, ego drives my overstepping, and other times, I just genuinely want to be helpful. No matter what the underlying intention is, though, the impact is the same: Overstepping makes people feel the opposite of empowered. As leaders, we need to be mindful of overstepping and intentional about putting our egos to the side. I have some tips on ways we can do that:
Be the last one to comment. In meetings or one-on-one conversations with your team, try to get in the habit of asking others what they think or what ideas they have before you offer your thoughts. Always give others a chance to share before you chime in. And if they say they don’t have an opinion or idea, ask them to think about it and meet with you later to discuss. It’s validating and empowering when leaders say, “I’d love to hear what you think.”
Let people make mistakes. Trust me—I know that this is hard to do! But letting people fall down helps them grow. People don't need us to protect them from failing; they need us to have their backs. When they fall down, it’s a leader’s job to support them and assure them that they're going to be okay, that they can get back up, and that we won’t abandon them. It’s much easier said than done, but as leaders, we need to be comfortable with the fact that people are going to fail, and that we must allow that to happen if we really want to help them grow.
Let people own their growth. After someone makes a mistake, we need to let them own the solution. They might need our guidance and support, but they need to be the ones who pull themselves back up. In this situation, guidance and support could look like asking: What do you think you should do about this? How can I help you? How can I best support you? When you feel that impulse to jump in and save someone from the sting of failure, try asking the person, “What do you need most right now?” Let them lead you and guide you, because if they can own the solution, then they get to own the success and become more confident as a result.
Give feedback only when you think it will greatly change the outcome. A rule of thumb I try to stick to is this: If someone has done something at least 80% as well as I could have done it, I don’t need to give them additional suggestions or feedback that might make it better. My reasoning is that at that point, my feedback isn’t going to be a game-changer; this person has already put together something that’s good the way it is. Me offering feedback is only going to diminish their ownership over this thing. So instead, I'm going to let them move forward and empower them. Usually, what happens is that the final product is way better than I could ever make it. So before you offer feedback, ask yourself: Is my feedback really going to be a game-changer in this conversation? Is it going to totally change the outcome of the solution? If it isn't, then don't give the feedback.
Ask your team where you might be overstepping. This one is tough. It takes a lot of humility to ask where you are overstepping—and while you’re at it, you may as well ask where you're under-stepping, too. When I asked my team this, I got some really valuable, tangible feedback with specific examples that helped me better understand how to navigate and walk that line. Creating the space for that conversation can be really freeing for you and for the team.
I want to hear from you: Do you struggle with overstepping? How have you navigated it with your team? If you have any tips to add to this list, I’d love to hear them!
Big hugs,
