Currently, I’m working with a self-confessed micro-manager. (I’ll call her Sam).

Sam knows this behaviour has got a lot worse during the pandemic with her team WFH.

She knows this is getting in the way of good leadership and she’s also finding it exhausting - but she feels nervous about being ‘hands off’ and (in her words) ‘losing control and not knowing what’s going on’.

And that’s the problem - we tend to look at things as either/or.

Either I’m a micromanager or I’m hands off.

But as you know by now (do I say this enough?!) we can take one step at a time to change any behaviour that’s not serving us or others well.

There’s a lot to explore with something like micromanaging - and we’ll be digging deeper into this I’m sure as Sam and I work together.

But she wanted to do something practical to make a start.

So this is what we did:

I asked her these questions to get to the root of her micromanaging tendencies and help her understand herself a little more:

• What does being in control mean to yo...