Some subordinates equate servant leadership with micromanagement and do not want their leader to get to know them or try to help. (Northouse, 2013)
Reading this line started me thinking of my previous manager and her leadership style as it relates to my own. I’ve always felt that I was an effective leader; I knew when to hold to reigns and when to let go until I read this week’s chapter on servant leadership. I’d teach my team a new task with the expectation that I’d delegate it to them checking for completion periodically. The concept of helping a follower become a leader in their own way or manner instead of just being a part of the process was profound for me.
I saw my previous manager as a micromanager; someone who delegated tasks yet checked if and when it was completed, often adding more instruction for its completion to match her expectations. There were times when I’d take a walk just to stop myself from screaming.
For example, I was the direct supervisor for 4 tellers and each day I’d let them know where they were in production vs. the goal for the month. I’d ask what specific plans and timeframes they had for reaching their goals. My manager would come in not 10 minutes later and ask the same questions or discuss the same topics as I’d just shared with the tellers. This would anger me because it felt like she was undermining me and making me look incompetent. After learning about servant leadership, I can now say that there may have been times where her micromanaging was needed.
Honestly, there were times when I was slacking off, getting complacent with the job duties because I felt it was handled, until she’d point out a task I’d missed. I had no right to get angry because I wasn’t doing the job.
Looking back I can now see there were times where I needed her assistance. Those were teachable moments and I wasn’t receptive to them. What I saw as micromanagement might have been her way of trying to develop my leadership skills. Using my supervisor role as the background for the current situation (antecedent condition), with my ability to listen, empathize, and commitment to the growth of my team (servant leader behavior), she would have brought out a stronger focus on organizational performance (outcome) which looks like a cohesive team.
My goal as a supervisor is to bring out the best in my team, if micromanaging them when they aren’t working to their full potential is one way of developing them to become better leaders in the future, then I’m all for it.
Like the saying goes, “you can give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day or you can teach him how to fish and he can eat for a lifetime”. Now I understand that my role as a supervisor is to not only show my team how to complete a task but to help them show others because doing so also develops them as leaders.
References
Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications, Inc.
PSUWC Psych 485: Leadership in Workplace Settings. Lesson 11: Servant Leadership. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp15/psych485/002/content/11_lesson/04_page.html
Ronald Earl Neff says
Leadership comes with a price that management does not: emotional investment. I like to use parenting as an ideal example of leading, because it involves being intrusive when necessary, making hard decisions that will net adversity from the led, and an emotional investment to make the led better than they know they can be. Management is more like the authoritative relationship that exists between our children and an adult sitter. Though an emotional investment can exist between manager and employee, it usually only exists when the manager is also a leader. The two [leaders and manager] are not always mutually exclusive.
Northouse (2013) is accurate in its measure of subordinate disinterest with micromanagement, but micromanagement and intrusive leadership are not necessarily the same thing (Northouse, 2013). A micromanager is a “do’er” whose only version of “done right” is their version, so they hover (like a helicopter parent) over the employee to a degree that curbs growth and paralyzes initiative. An intrusive leader, on the other hand, is intimately involved in developing the subordinate through intrusive involvement, but their primary focus in on maximizing the unrealized potential in the subordinate.
A servant leader is invested in the development of subordinates, and understands that the human factor responsible for production is the most important part in production. A servant leader stands behind their subordinates when the subordinates are doing well, and shields them by standing directly in front of them when they fail. A real servant leader does not want the credit for the team’s performance, but they do want the genuine respect of the team.
I firmly believe that a necessary quality of a leader (particularly a servant leader) is to allow failure among his/her subordinates. Understanding that we learn more from our failures than we do our successes, developing subordinates to the limits of their capabilities requires an allowable degree of failure. Therefore, micromanagers only serve to hinder the development of their subordinates because they impose their way upon them. A leader, even an intrusive leader, uses failure as a lesson to further develop their subordinates.
References:
Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications, Inc.
PSUWC Psych 485: Leadership in Workplace Settings. Lesson 11: Servant Leadership. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp15/psych485/002/content/11_lesson/04_page.html
Klatann Thomas says
In your approach to teach your team a task with the expectation of delegating it to them and monitoring it periodically sounds more to me like situational leadership modeling, which is a solid approach to ensuring technical work gets accomplished and skills are elevated. Your blog sounds like you come across a “eureka” moment in the “true leaders lead leaders” arena. There are a ton of philosophies out there about leading from the middle, leading from the rear, etc. personally, I believe leadership starts with leading from inside you. One of the easiest evaluation tools is holding up the directive or guidance and genuinely determining “what I follow me?”
This is an honestly refreshing blog. I love that you had to walk off your previous manager’s behavior. They say even poor examples have their merits in that hopefully you don’t adopt them.
In retrospect, I’m certain of your manager had posed the questions privately or in a different setting are different manner it may not have provoked you as much. Another component here, as I look from the outside, is how we assume the title manager equates to competence and training, not always true.
Do you not believe that micromanagement is simply the most negative handling of coaching, supervising, and instructing? I do. Anything to excess starts to have a negative impact. Food, work, etc. can be grossly misaligned.
Through coursework, experience, and application our hindsight becomes 20/20. The larger challenge them to come through and evaluation while in a circumstance with the stressors of reality in the doing. Will we perform and apply concepts and best practices when the chips are down? Sometimes we don’t but hopefully those occasions become fewer and fewer.
I recall watching an interview with retired champion Evander Holyfield wherein he was discussing the basics of boxing. Mr. Holyfield brought out a point that by the time we see a boxer in professional, televised fights he’s gone through thousands of hours of training and the things we see are smooth and polished and instinctive… for the boxer, after all the work is been put in. But at the onset and the midpoint frequently may become cerebral and have to think about what to do next and what the counter is and where the foot was supposed to be.
The point being, we are all in various stages of development and even those who appear smooth, polished, and refined and their technique had to have a start point and had to make mistakes to grow into who we now aspire to be.
From my perspective is very important to remember how you felt when you were micromanaged and the impact it had on your psyche and the workplace. I think if you make adjustments and communication and greater efforts in relationship building micromanagement become something different.
Just my thoughts…
Another interesting blog, thank you so much for sharing.