Hands off management style how to#

The Disadvantages of Laissez-Faire Leadership.Boosts Job Satisfaction and Employee Morale.Employees Get Diverse and Hands-On Experience.Workers Can Discover and Nurture Individual Skills.The Advantages and Disadvantages of Laissez-Faire Leadership.I have learned IвЂ™m not a very good or wise manager (unless itвЂ™s for people who donвЂ™t need to be managed:-), so I have to employ a few heuristics like this to make it easier on myself and stay disciplined. ItвЂ™s subject to change, and I do not always stick to it even though I think I should. This matrix represents my approximate ideal. But the cost of thinking about it normally outweighs the cost of just bucking up and being a hands on manager anyway, so IвЂ™ve tried to remove all thinking from this one and just do it every time. I used to waste a lot of mental resources treating this as a judgement call too. I get all up in that business every time. The low cost of involvement high cost of error quadrant is one that requires no thought. If my main motivation is because I donвЂ™t want to get involved out of laziness or boredom, it probably means I should. If my main motivation for being hands off is because I think it best for the employee or company, itвЂ™s probably good to stay light. It requires case by case thinking, and I canвЂ™t let myself off the hook too easy. But this cannot be a quick default position. ThatвЂ™s how you see what youвЂ™ve got and watch people rise to the occasion or not. I want to give people a chance to make some higher stakes decisions without me micromanaging or micro-monitoring. When it takes a lot of time and resources for me to get involved or monitor things in detail, I want to think through very carefully whether to be in the weeds. I still stubbornly refuse to go that far. Many managers get involved when the stakes are high every time. I would wait until someone told me something was wrong or asked for help to get involved. For the bottom row of the matrix, I used to default to no involvement in both cases.

The more of my decisions are higher risk, the better IвЂ™m using my time. The difficult tasks arenвЂ™t the most important ones to hand off, the low risk ones are. To me, thereвЂ™s no point in hiring someone if I am going to spend time on low risk activities in their aegis.

Hands off management style how to#

So how to make the call?ДЇirst youвЂ™ll notice that when the cost of failure is low, I opt to keep a light touch, even if the cost of getting involved would also be low. Just a bit of steering early in the process can have a huge impact on the outcome.Д«ut if I operate from a place of panic, distrust, or micromanagement, nobody wins. When theyвЂ™d say, вЂњYep, this project is on trackвЂќ IвЂ™d just be happy they were on it and I didnвЂ™t need to get involved. Many times, IвЂ™ve paid a steep price for letting someone do their thing without really checking their work or process in detail, only to find out when the outcome was a major problem. But the 10% can be disproportionately costly. When I trust someone, I take their word and let them work. I look for great talent and let them fly. But I have learned to watch out for and try to curb the excesses. IвЂ™m never going to fight against my dominant style.