Are you someone whose whole day gets wasted only in assisting your team members, helping them or checking their work and you are not able to do your tasks? Or your business is not growing because you are stuck in operations? If yes, then you must read this blog. So, in this blog, I will tell you how you can reduce this manager dependency.
WHAT’S IN IT
What is Manager dependency?
So, let’s understand it with an example. As soon as you enter the office, your HR person arrives at you for deciding the budget. As soon as he leaves, your salesperson comes to know whether his sales strategy is right or not. Next, you go to check their work by yourself by going to their desks.
So, in doing these non-valuable things which will have very less impact on increasing the growth of your company, you wasted your day. Also, your work which you have to do for the day is left behind.
This also can help your employees to take advantage of your’s and reduce their responsibility. This leads to manager dependency.
So, you need to try reducing the dependency of your’s for your employees by giving them some freedom. In the next few sections, I will talk about it.
Why is manager dependency harmful to your business?
It is extremely harmful to your business if you are stuck in operations because by doing so, you can make your business profitable, but you cannot grow and scale it.
So, instead of focussing more on the operations, focus on what matters the most.
Micromanagement
Micromanagers try to control all the tasks in detail. But, instead of doing so, you must try to focus only on the essential things because micromanaging your employees is very time-consuming and also requires a lot of energy.
You must avoid this by learning to delegate and trusting your employees because micromanagement hurts you, your company and your employees.
Micromanagement will reduce the confidence of your employees as most of them will think our boss doesn’t trust us. Also, it is very demotivating and frustrating for them.
Micromanagers won’t be able to set priorities as everything is urgent and important to them, which isn’t true.
So, now I will tell you three tips that you can use to avoid micromanagement.
- Always focus on the results and not the way to results.
- Don’t blame them for making mistakes because they will learn more from mistakes then you can teach them.
- Write all the important work which you have to do during the day and paste it on your work-desk. So that you always get reminded of your work you have to do whenever you try to micromanage. This will help you to focus more on tasks that you can only do or the work that you are only supposed to do.
Create a culture of Responsibility and Independence in your Company
Giving responsibility and trust to your employees will not only save your precious time but will also help them have more confidence in them.
In this section, I will tell you some of the ways that you can use to create a culture of responsibility and independence in your organisation and prevent manager dependency.
Teach the initial employees how you work
So, when you are hiring your first employee or a particular work, teach them the way how you do this work for the first week. Then for the next week, now you see him/her do the work themselves, correct their mistakes, solve their queries. Now, let them do that work themselves and don’t interfere later.
So, you will not have any tension later that whether they are doing their work correctly or not and you will not be checking and interfering in their work every time because it can waste a lot of time of yours.
Also, the next employee which you will hire can learn from that employee which you teach above without your intervention.
Appreciate and Reward Employees taking Responsibility
Appreciate and reward your employees when they take independent action to get the work done. This will also encourage other employees to do so as they will be motivated by the rewards. Hence, manager dependency will be reduced.
Also, give promotions to the independent action takers. But, in this race of taking independent action, many employees will commit mistakes. But, don’t get sad or angry about it, as they will learn a lot from these mistakes and you will have a much better employee after it.
Remember, the best learning environment is one where people aren’t scared to make mistakes.
Make a specific time when your employees can take help from you
If you remain available for your employees all the time, they will approach you for even small things. So, for this, schedule a time where you will be available for them to solve their queries or for checking their work.
This will help your employees become independent when you are not there. Also, this will increase the employee to employee engagement as they will now solve their queries and issues among themselves.
Make a hierarchy in your organization
Make the head of each department present in your organisation like sales, HR, tech etc. Choose the best employee from each department and make him the head of their respective department. Give him the responsibility to solve all the queries and issues of each member of their department. Also, ask the head to check all the work of employees.
Now, these heads will be only allowed to have a meeting with you to solve the queries, issues which they are also not able to solve. So, now only a few problems will arrive at you which will save a lot of time of yours.
So, make a hierarchy where you will be at the top, then the head of departments will be there and finally the employees working under these heads.
Give Training to your employees
Organise frequent training sessions and workshops for your employees. This will help them to increase their confidence in their work, and they won’t bother you much for help.
Conclusion
To sum up, let’s talk about what we have all discussed in this blog. First told you what manager dependency is. In short words, it means as a leader, you are so much entangled in operations that you don’t work towards the growth of the company.
Next, I told you why is it harmful to your company? It is harmful because it hampers the growth of your company while you are busy in operational work.
Next, I told you about micromanagement and some ways to tackle it. Then I told you about some ways to create a culture of responsibility and independence in your company.
Under it, the first way is to teach your employees your way of doing the work before giving them the job. Second, appreciate and reward when an employee takes responsibility.
Third, make a specific time to solve the queries or to check the work of your employees. Don’t be available to them 24X7. Fourth, create a hierarchy in your organisation where you will be at the top, followed by department heads and then the rest of the employees, so that you don’t have to solve queries of all the employees instead only the department heads.
Finally, provide regular training and workshops to your employees.
After reading the blog, I believe you must have understood all the ways you can use to prevent manager dependency.
Also You can Read our Blog on 7 Ways To Maximise Employee Engagement In Team Learning