A Leader’s Blueprint to Beat the Micromanagement Mindset | Scott McCarthy | Episode 287

Scott McCarthy [00:00:01]:
Creating a positive environment, getting better morale out of your team, and dealing with a micromanager for a supervisor, or definitely in this case, a boss, and the term we use here, boss. These are just some of the topics I’m gonna hit on today. Why? Because I’m taking your questions. That’s right. I am diving into your questions, your issues, your scenarios today. So ready for it? Alright. Let’s do it. Welcome 1.

Scott McCarthy [00:00:45]:
Welcome all to the Peak Performance Leadership Podcast, a weekly podcast series dedicated to helping you hit peak performance across the 3 domains of leadership. Those being leading yourself, leading your team, and leading your organization. This podcast couples my 20 years of military experience as a senior Canadian army officer with world class guests bringing you the most complete podcast of leadership going. And for more, feel free to check out our website at moving forward leadership .com. And with that, let’s get to the show. Hey. Yes. It is your chief leadership officer, Scott McCarthy.

Scott McCarthy [00:01:36]:
Thanks for tuning in to you, the leader, the listener, the hungry, wanting more person because we’re all people. Right? Anyway, thanks for tuning in. It’s great to have you here. And more importantly, if you’re listening and I answer or talk about your situation, I’m happy that you’ve tuned in to hear what I have to say about it. And if this isn’t your situation or you’re not sure what I’m talking about, that’s cool because no doubt it can help you in the long run. That’s right. Today, I’m taking your questions. I’m taking your situations and providing my input, my advice to you as your chief leadership officer because, hey, that’s my role.

Scott McCarthy [00:02:28]:
My role is to help you lead lead yourself, lead your team, and lead your organization to that peak performance, and you can’t do it without a little help. None of us can. We can’t win by ourselves. So that’s what’s going on today in this episode. And if you’re wondering where this comes from, I posed the question from time to time in our free Facebook group that is leadership skills for managers who want to be leaders, not bosses, and you can check that out easy by going to lead dump boss.comforward/group. Okay? And from time to time, I drop it in, and people will throw in the situations that they’re struggling with. And here I am providing my input. So, nonetheless, let’s dive in.

Scott McCarthy [00:03:27]:
Let’s dive in. And under the premise of basically not secrecy, but privacy. I’m not gonna mention people’s names, but rather I will do their initials. And that the first one is from a d. Good old army, phonetic lingo that is alpha delta. And this person basically asked about how to go about creating a positive environment. Now he also mentions about delegating tasks. Delgating tasks comes up a couple times here, so I’m gonna come to that at the end of the show.

Scott McCarthy [00:04:11]:
I got an announcement to make. So if you’re interested in about learning more about delegating tasks and you’re interested in how to do that properly, do not turn off this episode. You want to hear what I have to say at the end of the episode. So, nonetheless, here we go. So creating a positive environment creating a positive environment is crucial. You want to have that positive environment in there. You wanna make people feel like they’re part of the team and that they can show up, make mistakes that they can contribute, and then finally, figure out slash point out faults that are going on within the organization. These are all great things that car or develop a positive environment.

Scott McCarthy [00:05:05]:
And now to do so, I’m basically gonna reference the podcast episode I’ve referenced the most. And at this point now, I think I’m gonna have to bring him back because his episode is old, but yet it is still so relevant, and that is the importance of psychological safety with Tim Clark on episode 128. If you wanna check that episode out, simply go to lead dope boss .comforward/128. And you can listen to that one if you haven’t done so. But, of course, it’s in your favorite podcast player app as well so let me run you through the premise of Tim’s work, and by the way, he has a PhD in this field, so he knows what he’s talking about here. And let’s go through the 4 stages according to Tim. Stage 1 is be longer safety. I e I feel like I belong in this organization.

Scott McCarthy [00:06:09]:
It is safe for me. It is frankly accepting of me for who I am. Right? If I am and I’ll use it just a funny example because I don’t wanna hit on any actual potential issues out there. But for example, I, as a die hard Montreal Canadians fan, if I show up to an organization and they go, sorry, dude. You could only wear Montreal Maple Leaf stuff here. And by the way, if you’re not a hockey fan, then you probably don’t know the teams I’m talking about. But long story short, 2 NHL hockey teams, bitter rivalry, enough said. So I wouldn’t feel safe there.

Scott McCarthy [00:06:49]:
I wouldn’t feel like I belong because the moral of the story is that it is for Leaf fans, not Canadians fans. So that is stage 1. But if they said, hey, we’re all leaf lovers here, but you know what? Hockey is just a game. It’s just a sport. Then you can still kick around. We’re not gonna harass you. We may, you know, poke fun at you when we beat you in the games night, day after, or whatever what have you. But the grand score story is that you still don’t worry.

Scott McCarthy [00:07:28]:
You’re still part of the team. Then I can go ahead and say, cool. Stage 2. Alright. Now I’m working there for a little bit, and I decide, hey. I’m gonna wear my jersey on game day. And I show up and everybody is still in, you know, business attire. This is where stage 2 comes in.

Scott McCarthy [00:07:49]:
And stage 2 is learner safety, and that is the the ability to basically make mistakes but learn from the mistakes. So I show up game day in Jersey, Montreal, Canadiens, Jersey, but everyone else is in business attire. And I get pulled to the side and say, hey. As much as we love hockey and the Leafs around here and we know you’re a Canadian’s fan, we accept you for it, but you’re still a Canadians fan. We don’t actually allow jerseys in the office unless it’s for special events or special reasons, which the CEO signs off on. So you might wanna change. Right? That is learner safety. Not not reprimanding me for that mistake, but rather they’re coaching me through the mistake.

Scott McCarthy [00:08:44]:
They’re allowing me to learn from the mistakes so that next game day, I don’t have this twitch, this scared, this fear of showing up and not getting further accosted or reprimanded because of the last time I wore my jersey when I wasn’t supposed to alright So that’s stage 2, learner safety, the ability to learn from one’s mistakes. Stage 3 is contributor safety. Contributor safety is when we feel safe enough to push up our ideas to provide input into the organization. So going along with this crazy example that I randomly came up with, maybe I suddenly point out that hey hey you know what maybe we should just celebrate all hockey fans here, and maybe we should, well, put the playoffs on and cheer for any Canadian team during the playoff time. That would be contributor safety. I’m putting ideas forward, and they’re not merely getting shut down, like or they’re not they are being they are, I should say, being welcomed with the open arms. So the team can easily team lead could be like, yeah. I’ll bring that up to the hires.

Scott McCarthy [00:10:13]:
He’s not or she’s not immediately going. That’s a stupid idea. Why would you think that? We’ve already set our tone here. We’re a lead fan only. No I’m not pushing that that is where you would not achieve stage 2 but rather you would if you go okay cool We’ll we’ll take that, and we’ll push it up and see. Now the first thing you’re going to probably think is, well, do I have to take every single idea pushed to me? Answer is no. No. You don’t.

Scott McCarthy [00:10:45]:
Right? You can still achieve contributor safety without having to take every idea brought forward to you. But the thing is what you need to do is ensure that if someone’s idea doesn’t really meet what it is that you’re the aim of what you’re trying to do, then you need to explain to them why. Right? People will accept no, but what they won’t accept is the absence of why to the no. If you just tell them no, they’re not going to accept it. That’s shutting them down. But if you say, hey. No. And the reason is it’s not really aligned with our strategy right now and our plan moving forward.

Scott McCarthy [00:11:32]:
That being said, keep it in your back pocket. I’ll try to remember it. And if there’s opportunity for us to take advantage of this idea, to implement this idea where it makes sense and aligns with our goal and our strategy, then, yeah, we’ll definitely take it in consideration. But, unfortunately, at this time, it doesn’t really fit into that. So we’re gonna have to park it for now, but keep the ideas coming because I want to hear from you. K. That is just a polite way to say thank you, that they matter, that their ideas are not dumb, idiotic. They’re actually good.

Scott McCarthy [00:12:09]:
But, unfortunately, right now, at the moment, it just doesn’t fit with the priorities and the values slash strategy that the company organization is moving forward with. So there we go stage 3 and then the final stage is stage 4 and that is challenger safety. The ability to challenge the status quo without fear and acceptance. So with this crazy example that you’re going on with the company that only loves much or Charles Maple Leaf fans and I being a accepted Canadians fan, we go like this, and I bring up the idea. We’re sitting around a board meeting one time, and I go, hey. Listen. You all brought me in. You’re all the fans.

Scott McCarthy [00:12:58]:
I’m a Canadians fan. You brought me in and look the good that has come out. I’m not trying to toot my own horn here, but I feel like this organization has moved forward in a positive way in a little bit of a different way if if I weren’t here. And I’m not saying it’s just me, but rather the different perspective as a Canadians fan I bring. So why don’t we go after all types of fans? Why don’t we look for Ottawa fans and Edmonton and Winnipeg and Vancouver, not to mention Calgary fans? Like, we they all come with different perspectives and ideas and experiences that no doubt we can benefit from. And you see at that point in time, the board, the senior leadership of the organization, they got a decision to make because I’m bringing up about diversity and different perspectives and the benefits that I can bring to the organization and using myself as an example. Now they can shut me down and going, yeah. Thanks.

Scott McCarthy [00:14:04]:
Go back. Alright. But in this example, I’m not just contributing, like saying, hey. Here’s an idea. But rather, I’m challenging the status quo. I’m challenging the culture of the organization. I’m challenging the way it operates. See, that’s the difference between contributing and challenging.

Scott McCarthy [00:14:27]:
Contributing is just putting ideas forward. Challenging is is trying to make positive change for something that’s already there. And, again, just like contributor, you don’t have to accept it, but you can definitely look at it. You can definitely thank the person for their contribution, for their challenge. And, again, if it’s a no, let them know why. But you can also take that in and look into it. Take an advisement. Dig a little deeper.

Scott McCarthy [00:15:00]:
Start planning it out. You see, the 4 stages here are all about empowering people to bring things forward to better their organization, and that’s what creates a positive work environment. Because when people feel included and that they can bring their voice forward, that they can may try to make things better and not get a cost for it. And that their ideas and their words actually mean something to someone in the organization, that brings positivity. That fosters growth. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you go about building high performing teams by making these people feel good. Because as soon as someone starts feeling good, then the positivity starts radiating for them, and they start getting other people on board and others on board. And the more and more you do it, the more and more positivity you’re going to breathe.

Scott McCarthy [00:16:02]:
So, AD, I hope this helps you out to consider that. I hope that this, you know, resonates with you. As well as j w, actually, this person basically asked about getting positivity at a team and better morale. So as well as v b who says me too to that one. So needless to say, it is a big theme. It is a absolutely serious subject, but looking at those 4 stages of psychological safety, you can definitely definitely, bring some positivity to your team and to your environment. So try it out. Let me know how it works.

Scott McCarthy [00:16:46]:
You got questions? I’m here for you. Alright. Let’s move on. SS says, being firm and saying no both to employees and higher management. I’m a people pleaser. So, SS, the first thing I’m gonna say to you actually, I went ahead and I gave you a, episode, a good oldie, but a goodie, episode 84, develop leader courage to push back against management, and hopefully, you check that out. If you did, let me know what you think, but I’m gonna give you some other pieces of advice ways to go about being firm and saying no. And the thing about it, you you state you’re a people pleaser, which being a people pleaser is not necessarily bad thing.

Scott McCarthy [00:17:34]:
It ain’t a good thing, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. So let’s look at the good of it. The good of it, the biggest thing is is that you care. That’s amazing. Do you know how many leaders out there actually don’t give a crap about their people and their organization? You care. So don’t get rid of that. That is a beautiful thing and something that’s so needed with leaders everywhere this day and age. Okay? So take that.

Scott McCarthy [00:17:59]:
Now that being said, what I’m hearing from you is what you require is boundaries, establishing boundaries with your team, k, as well as with higher management. And the establishing boundaries can come down to one amazing thing a word that begins with the leader letter p as in Papa and that is priorities. If you have priorities, then you are not saying no. What you’re doing is is that you’re you are basically analyzing and comparing what you’re being asked or slash told to do with the priorities of whatever is going on at the time. So if your team are asking you for things and that does not line up with the priorities that you’re trying to achieve, that is how you say no. You simply say, sorry. It’s just not a priority at this time, but we can revisit later. I absolutely want to look at it.

Scott McCarthy [00:19:14]:
In fact, I’m going to take note of it, and we’ll have a chat about it later when we can go ahead and look at the priorities to see if this can fit in. K? Priorities. Priorities. Priorities. Prioritize the work, the projects, what you’re moving towards, the goals, ambitions, etcetera. And then there, while sticking to the priorities, you’re not being firm and just saying no, but rather you’re realigning people to those priorities. Because what’s gonna happen with your employees is that someone’s gonna ask think of something to ask for you. And once they get used to this, they’re gonna go, oh, wait now.

Scott McCarthy [00:20:00]:
Is this along with the company’s priorities right now? Crap. No. It doesn’t. She’s gonna say no because it doesn’t align with the priorities, so you don’t want let’s move on. I gotta get back in line with the priorities. Okay. Now when it comes to higher management, of course, they’re higher than you. They get to go ahead and prioritize your work.

Scott McCarthy [00:20:23]:
But this is the key thing again, getting them to prioritize your work, getting them to tell you what the priorities are. And therefore, you’re not pushing back and saying no to them, but rather you’re letting them know what’s achievable and what’s not achievable and they get to decide. Like, hey, You asked me to do a and b, but now you’re asking me to do c. I can do c, but a and b has to take a sideline, has to take a pause, has to come off right now because c is gonna take up all of my time and resources. Your call, boss. We can do a and b or we can do c. Unfortunately, we can’t do both. This is how you’re being firm.

Scott McCarthy [00:21:06]:
You’re not saying no. What you’re doing is getting them to decide what’s more important to them, getting them to prioritize. And then from there, you go, okay. And you guide your team towards whatever the result is. So if they say, never mind. Stick a to b. We’ll deal with c later. You go, cool.

Scott McCarthy [00:21:23]:
Carry on. They go, nope. Drop a and b. I want you to do c. Okay. Cool. I was just need a little bit of time. Orient my team.

Scott McCarthy [00:21:30]:
Get us squared away and we’ll be after it right away. And, hey, folks. Situation has changed. Higher has dictated new priorities, and this is what we’re working on right now, project c. So, again, it’s not you saying no. It’s not you being a pushover, but rather you getting them to prioritize your work and your team’s work so that you’re moving in the right direction. Your abilities are a pie chart. You only have so much time, so much resources to achieve the things you achieve.

Scott McCarthy [00:22:05]:
Therefore, if something’s gonna go enter the pie chart, something else needs to leave the pie chart. Okay? I hope this helps you. You are definitely not alone from what I see in there with the comments about it and such, but I definitely wanted to address this. Okay. The final one that we’ll talk about now before we dive into talking about delegation is TM’s issue. She’s this person is dealing with a micromanager supervisor. They’re working slash manager. They have policies to follow, etcetera.

Scott McCarthy [00:22:50]:
However, it looks like if their supervisor could hover over them to make sure everything that they do is in his way, even though he doesn’t live in the same town. So he is apparently calling them 3 times a day at least. Abrasive dominates conversations. However, the problem is is that these calls, obviously, being the supervisor being abrasive and dominating the conversation, it’s also eating up a lot of TM’s time. So this is a difficult situation. Right? I and I feel for you. I’ve been in this type of situation before or at a micromanager. Unfortunately, they worked a floor above me and would often, like, get me to do stupid little jobs that effectively it took more time for them to call, get me to open up a file, fix whatever things that they wanted fixed than if they had just done it themselves.

Scott McCarthy [00:23:55]:
So I get you. I understand where you’re coming from, the abrasiveness and the domination of conversations. So here are some things for you to consider as advice. The first thing is you cannot likely change this person. They obviously are this way and no doubt have been this way for quite some time. Now that being said, their micromanagement is coming from a place of fear. I’m not saying that you’re not doing a good job or don’t know what you’re doing, but rather the fact that they are probably not around adds to the fuel of the fear fire. So you have to keep this in mind.

Scott McCarthy [00:24:42]:
They’re coming from a place of fear. Now that being said, is it a positive way to go about it? Good. No. Not a chance As you outline, you know what you’re doing. You can achieve it. So here are some things for you to consider. Keep in mind, this is coming from a place of fear. Make some suggestions to them.

Scott McCarthy [00:25:04]:
1st off, you got 3 calls 3 times a day. Three calls, a day with them. How about trying to arrange, and what I would suggest if they are a dominator of conversation, get this to messaging, email. Make sure to go over it, a few times before hitting send, of course, to make sure it doesn’t come across as, you being basically insubordinate, but rather you wanna try to come across as being helpful. Now a great way to be able to e ease this in is if they bring up something along the lines, let’s say, oh, we need to be more productive here. That’s a great way to be to take that as an int. So you send them a message saying, hey. You mentioned that we need to be more productive.

Scott McCarthy [00:26:03]:
I have a great idea, if you don’t mind, to run by you because I think this could help our productivity align with your wishes right now. And right you can’t kill the 3 calls a day right away. It’s gonna be impossible. Again, go back to the fact this is coming from a place of fear. So what do you do? You could take control of the calls and guide the supervisor, and let’s attempt 2. So okay. Let’s go for 2. 1 in the morning, 1 in the afternoon.

Scott McCarthy [00:26:37]:
1 in the morning to set goals for the week slash priorities for the day, and then a wrap up later in the afternoon, early evening, whatever your work schedule looks like so that you can let them know how things are going, what was achieved, how it was achieved, and so on. So that eliminates 1 of those 3 calls a day. Okay. In regards to the abrasiveness, can’t change it, can’t do anything about it. The only thing you can potentially do is let them know it’s not appreciated that you would that you don’t enjoy being talked to in that manner. Okay? And if they’re open enough, which I don’t think they will be from the sound of it, they will take it to heart and try to change. And then the dominating of the conversations, now we can work with this. We can work with the conversation domination, and that’s simply by doing nothing.

Scott McCarthy [00:27:34]:
And you’re probably going, what? Yeah. Simply, when the conversation starts, let them go until they run out of steam. At some point, everyone’s gonna run out of steam. It happens. Yes. I know there are some amazing talkers out there that will just keep going and going and going until you feel like they can never stop. But you’re playing basically a game here in trying to set things up for yourself. You’re trying to set yourself up for success.

Scott McCarthy [00:28:06]:
So allow them to dominate the conversation. It makes them feel safe and secure. Right? Again, coming from a fear based. Right? There are fear based micromanagement. So therefore you let them feel safe and secure, and then you go ahead and bring up your points, your ideas, whatever it is you wanna talk about near the end. K? So those are some ideas. Okay. It will take time.

Scott McCarthy [00:28:40]:
It’s gonna take a long time, and fear does not go away immediately or overnight, especially in these types of scenarios and situations. So be patient, keep trying, and know I am here for you if you need any help. So good luck with that, I wish you best luck. I’ve been in your shoes before. It’s not fun, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. One way or another, there’s light, and you got this. Alright. So those were 3 different scenarios we hit on.

Scott McCarthy [00:29:15]:
I did tell you that we were gonna talk about delegation, before we wrap up tonight. We are gonna talk about delegation, but I’m not gonna talk about delegation right now. In fact, what we’re going to do is on Tuesday, 27th Feb 2024, I am going to do a live webinar on delegation. So if you’re interested in checking that out live and being able to ask me questions direct during the webinar, go to leedon’tboss.comforward/webinar and sign up. And what you’re gonna get out of that is a framework on how to delegate to people, how to make sure things don’t come off the rails, how to feel, you know, that safe and secure feeling for yourself. But at the same time, give your people the tools and resources to get on with the job that you need them to get on with. And by the way, delegation is what I refer to as a leader in force multiplier. It expands your ability to do so much with so much ease.

Scott McCarthy [00:30:27]:
So if you’re having trouble with delegating, a d as well as, v b p s, and the number are other you in here. I just don’t have the time to scroll through and do initials and stuff. But the moral story is this. If you’re having troubles delegating, check us out. There will be a recording available for you if you only can pop in for a little bit. Okay? But do check it out. Again, that is 27 February 2024, 8:30 PM EST. Alright.

Scott McCarthy [00:31:08]:
And I will be talking to you all over delegation then. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is it for the show? Again, thank you as always. You’re all rock stars. You’re all leaders because if you were bosses, you simply think you knew it all, and you wouldn’t be able to listen to this podcast anyway. So best of luck to you. Keep in touch. Till next time. Leave.

Scott McCarthy [00:31:33]:
Don’t boss. Take care now. And that’s a wrap for this episode, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting the peak performance leadership podcast. But you know what you could do to truly support the podcast? And, no, that’s not leaving a rating and review. It’s simply helping a friend, and that is helping a friend by sharing this episode with them if you think this would resonate with them and help them elevate their performance level, whether that’s within themselves, their teams, or their organization. So do that.

Scott McCarthy [00:32:10]:
Help me, help a friend, win win all around, and, hey. You look like a great friend at the same time. So just hit that little share button on your app, and then feel free to fire this episode to anyone that you feel would benefit from it. Finally, there’s always more. There’s always more lessons around being the highest performing leader that you can possibly be, whether that’s for yourself, your team, or your organization. So why don’t you subscribe? Subscribe to the show via moving forward leadership .comforward/subscribe. Until next time, we eat. Don’t boss, and thanks for coming out.

Scott McCarthy [00:32:54]:
Take care