Why Most Leaders Micromanage - And How I Learned Not To

I run a company with over 1,200 employees.

And if you are a founder that is trying to figure out how to run a team, you better listen to this!!

Being the boss of your company rocks. You can literally tell people what to do and they

will do it…. But you are shooting yourself in the foot if that is how you are building.

Micromanaging is for people who live in fear.

I get it! You have a fear that your team will not deliver and that your business will fall apart without your fingerprints everywhere or that people will make a BIG mistake.

Wake up!! That is the point! That is how they are going to get better.

What most CEO’s get wrong

Being a CEO isn’t about telling people how to do their job. It is about getting them to believe in themselves enough to take actions to move the company forward.

And you can’t do that while you are breathing down their neck! Gross!

I do not hire people to follow my instructions.

I hire them because they are experts and I want them to tell me what they think is best.

The only reason why I am able to run a company at this scale is because I have people that I trust to run their own teams. Though every now and then I will pop in and drop a comment and people will start to freak out because “Curtis said something!!”

But they also know I expect them to have opinions! I don’t need agreement! I need leadership.

The Maverick Story

A great example of why this work is my CMO, Maccoy Merkley or as I like to call him, Maverick… he started out as a photographer.

I paid him $12 an hour.

He did not have a fancy title, and I sure as hell did not give him a carefully detailed job description!!

At that time, the entire business was focused on Etsy. That was our world and then Maverick came in with this “wild idea” of building out our own website. Guess what happened.

Everyone ignored him. They thought it was a ridiculous idea! And he had two options:

Shrink himself to fit the room, listen to the loudest voices, and keep taking pretty pictures

or

Bet on his idea and make it work anyway.

He chose the second path.

That’s what separates leaders from order-takers.

And that is what I look for.

Apply this to your company

After watching people like Maverick grow, I realized that there are two kinds of people:

- The builders - these are the people that are constantly hunting for things to improve. They fix problems without being asked… and they REALLY want to win. So they start to build on their own.

- The “tell me what to do” crowd. If you don’t hand them a task list, they will freeze. They are like store-bought flowers… look great for a while, then wilt without attention.

And here is what leaders get wrong: The more you micromanage, the more you turn your builders into wilted flowers!!

People rise when you give them room! They will shrink when you don’t!

And that is the key to scaling.

Scaling requires opinions, not obedience.

Stop hiring people who need step-by-step instructions because that model will collapse under its own weight!!

Hire people with opinions, ideas, and that will tell you that you are stupid and that you should do things differently. That is the real force behind a company that scales.

I have over 1,200 employees but I am not leading 1,200 people.

I am leading 36 people who each run their own worlds.

Thirty-six people who make decisions, give direction, solve problems, and build teams without needing me to hover behind them.

That’s the real reason I don’t micromanage:

The company only grows when other people grow with it.

When you stop controlling everything… people surprise you.

Boom!

Curtis Matsko - CEO & Founder of Portland Leather Goods