4 actions to break the micromanagement cycle

Follow-up to last week’s 'The Accidental Micromanager' — Lia Garvin explains four concrete actions to stop micromanaging and get your team owning the work again. Learn practical steps to exit micromanagement without chaos, plus how to rebuild clarity, set boundaries, and restore accountability. Episode length: 15m44s. Ideal for founders, people managers, and leaders who need clear delegation strategies.

In this episode you will learn:

• Why re-setting expectations is not a failure — it's a signal — and how to use it
• What to actually say to your team before you step back from the meetings and decisions you've been holding
• The Apple DRI concept and how to define who makes what decisions on your team
• How to create a check-in structure that gives you real visibility without constant hovering
• The feedback loop that closes the cycle — and why most leaders skip it

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© 2026 Lia Garvin / Managing Made Simple

Transcript

Lia (00:00:00)
Last week we discovered, yeah, I might be micromanaging. And it might be accidentally.

Lia (00:00:09)
Last week we talked about the accidental micromanager. You didn't

Last week we talked about the accidental micromanager. You didn't mean to get in this situation, but you're going to every meeting, you're making every decision, and you're waving off when people ask you to take on more work. You didn't never, never ask for it to get this way. You don't want to be in the weeds, but that is the dynamic you're stuck in. This week is about what do we do when we realize, my gosh, I'm stuck. I want to better leverage my team.

And I don't really know how to unwind this. That is what we're gonna talk about today.

Lia (00:00:55)
Whenever we're micromanaging, it's because some need isn't being met. And usually it's this sense of fear around if I don't check in or if I don't say this, people are gonna forget. Or probably the fear that they're not doing it the way that's up to our standard. Whether that's our way that we feel like is the right way, the way that a client has is wanting something, the way that a stakeholder is wanting something. Micromanaging comes out of a fear of not having control over.

Is this thing gonna get done? Obviously, right? So in the previous episode, we talked about, well, when we're in that situation, we stay more present. We're in the conversation, we're making the decisions, we're not letting go because we think that's going to control the outcome. What we learned last week too is the more we control things, the less your team members step in, the less they step up. They actually stop making decisions because they think you're gonna just make the calls anyway.

They stop taking leadership in meetings and really owning, making points, ⁓ preparing well, being able to even drive the meeting at all, because they know you're going to be there to deal with it. ⁓ And with the last issue, they stop asking for more work. They stop raising their hand. And so you're always going to be stuck in the weeds. And that's why recognizing and going, my gosh, I gotta break these patterns, that's the first step. But what happens when you realize it and you're like, well.

Yeah, I did make too many of the decisions. I am too deep in all the meetings and talking to all the clients and always giving the update. I my team isn't equipped. They actually, if I stepped out of the meetings today, they wouldn't handle it well, right? Like, and so you feel stuck and you feel powerless and you feel like I ⁓ I know, I'm aware in my mind cognitively, and I don't know what to do. I've got you. Because that is how all of us feel.

And we didn't do this on purpose, but it is an untenable situation that you have a team here and you hired them and you're paying them. ⁓ And because you don't want to do that stuff or you should not be doing that stuff. And so we've got to deal with it. ⁓ And I I gotta be honest, you you don't have a choice in the matter. If you're a corporate manager always being in the weeds, that's going to prevent you from growing in your career because you're not operating at a strategic level.

Lia (00:03:22)
As a business owner, if you're always in the weeds, you have a scale on a ceiling, I mean, ⁓ on how big your business can grow. Plain and simple. Both of those outcomes are not what you want. They're not why you started this in the first place. So we we've got to unwind it. And it goes back the how. How do we unwind this? How do we break this spell? How do we avoid these traps? It comes down to ⁓ setting expectations.

Management 101. And maybe as a business owner, you don't even identify as a manager. You're listening, so you know that we're talking about management, but you feel like, well, I've hired people. I told them what I wanted to see. ⁓ Business owner or court manager doesn't matter. I've hired people. I spelled out the job. They know, like, ⁓ why do I have to explain everything all the time? Well, if you're feeling the need to micromanage, it means you have an unmet need, right?

That you're not getting what you want and you're worried, or you're worried you're not gonna get what you want. So ⁓ obviously, the job description and the onboarding, it wasn't enough. Otherwise, the stuff would be happening, it would be going well, and you would be able to just step out. So ⁓ that is the moment when we feel like, gosh, what if I gotta make sure I gotta check in? If my if my own VP checks in, I gotta have the answers. ⁓ All of these things that are triggering you to. ⁓

Hold on tighter and grab hold and be in the meetings and make the decisions. All of those things are because whatever expectations you thought you already set were not clear enough. Like, sorry, it's it's okay, right? It's totally okay. ⁓ It's saying, okay, so I'm getting a signal. I'm going to have to do this again or reiterate it. And that's fine. What I want to empower you with is not feeling like,

my gosh, I I hired this person and I had a job description, and you know, and they're just not cutting it when you haven't even reiterated the expectations. You have so much opportunity to be more clear. There's so much more available to you. So that's a gift you're getting. It's really, it's actually really empowering. Because you don't have to ⁓ feel like, ⁓ like I had one shot at this. ⁓ Reiterate expectations.

Lia (00:05:40)
You can do that dance every day as much as you need it. That's the beauty of this. So when you're feeling, gosh, I I'm in too deep. Well, the first thing you do is take a step back and say, hey, how about we own it? Let's step, let's step back and own it. I'm realizing I'm in all the meetings. I'm realizing I'm making all the decisions. I realize folks have come to me to raise their hand and I kind of brushed it off. Okay, ⁓ I am.

operating in a level of depth I don't want to be in. And it's kind of creating a strain on my team. And then we own that up to our team. We say, hey, I'm realizing I'm in pretty deep. Let's talk about ⁓ what you need to be able to take some of this over. And that's where the expectation setting begins. If you're going to hand off a meeting and you feel like, well, my my team members just sit there looking at their phones or their laptops, they're barely paying attention. Of course I have to be there.

If the client asks a hard question, I need to be able to answer that. I have clients that they run through marketing agency, ⁓ PR marketing ⁓ ads, anything that has like analytics to walk through. ⁓ And sometimes team members are really worried that ⁓ what if I get asked a question and I don't know how to answer it, like about some detailed piece of an analytics and I and I'm worried. And so the owner or a senior person is coming and helping in all of these meetings.

Because if a question gets asked, like somewhere in the universe, they will be prepared to field it. Well, ⁓ that is having safeguarding that could actually be done with an expectation around here's what we talk about in the meeting. Here's how we prepare. Here is how we answer a question, ⁓ respond when we don't have an answer, saying, great question. Let me take that back to the team. That's completely fine. ⁓ And your team members may not even realize that was available to them.

That's the expectation setting. What do you say when you don't have an answer or you need a minute to think about it? Or you want to go back to the team to assess the scope and the time and whatever. That's expectation setting. Telling your team you don't have to have the answers on the spot. Telling your team you have to have a meeting agenda. Telling your team these meetings have to come away with a decision. Telling your team, and this is a difficult stakeholder, this is how I handle them.

Lia (00:08:00)
All of that is how you build the confidence to be able to step out of those meetings. And maybe at first folks shadow you and you debrief after and you say, Hey, let's talk about this one. A couple, a couple ⁓ curveballs were thrown at us. What happened? What did we do? And you start to translate and download your thought process onto your team. And then you see, okay, they can start to handle this. And you do it little by little. Very similar with the decision making.

Very similar process. Talk about how you make decisions, what you think through, what you evaluate, what are things that are quick decisions and where you collect more information. What is the process for ⁓ having a decision and actually reopening it? It's not every decision, because that's gonna be a freaking nightmare. If you're like we decide, then we change your mind, blah, blah, blah. Thrash, thrash, thrash, thrash. Same process. You're setting the expectation of how to approach something.

And then people go, wait, I okay, I got it. And you talk about you, you lower the stakes a bit. When everything feels like if you screw up this meeting, you're fired, ⁓ or if you don't answer this question right, you're fired. There's no safety. People don't ever want to take that responsibility. And this is a huge, glaring problem in the corporate world of like no one wanting to actually make a decision because they don't want their butt on the line as the one that made the call.

And at Apple, ⁓ the person that makes a decision, it's called the DRI. And I think that's the case in a lot of different ⁓ tech companies, especially. Directly responsible individual. Someone is named in a bug, in a task, in a decision. And that's a scary place to be. But it doesn't mean the person that's going to get fired. It means this person is owning making the decision. And if you're the DRI, directly responsible individual on every freaking decision.

How are you ever going to not be the DRI on every decision? So it's setting expectations. When do I make calls? When do you? When is it mostly you making the call? But here's the kind of edge cases talking about that. This is all expectation setting. This is how you start to free yourself up from having to control everything. And then you've got to talk about once you've handed something off, when are we going to check in? How are we going to know?

Lia (00:10:23)
How are we gonna know this is on track? Because that's the thing about micromanaging. I say it all the time. It's not about what, it's about when. So maybe you've handed something off and then you start stepping back in because you get worried and you go, well, I haven't seen them start this thing yet, or I don't really know how they handle that. I'm a little bit out of the loop. And so you start checking in constantly, right? Or they're owning a meeting and you're like, I want to make sure that clients, you know, that's going well, and you start ju rejoining the meeting.

And then it's like, wait, what happened here? Are are you taking over or not? It's confusing to your team. So you talk about when you're gonna check in so that everyone's on the same page, so the person is prepared to give you an update. So you can give them some space to run with it and do things their way. That's the biggest piece, right? That's how we let go. We we set expectations, we let go. But we also are checking. We're not just throwing them out to sea. That's not helpful to anybody. And the last thing.

And this is the biggest one. If something doesn't go well, we give feedback about it. That's what ⁓ I think we miss so often ⁓ is we don't get we something doesn't go well and we go, never gonna do that again. ⁓ Yeah, I knew I shouldn't have handed that off. I knew the person wasn't ready. We create a whole story in our mind. Instead of giving feedback, we just take that thing right back over. Or we say, Okay, I'll I'll revisit this in a few months. ⁓ Or I knew it wasn't the right person. And we spin and we spiral.

And we don't give someone an opportunity to actually know, ⁓ wait a second, that's why that didn't work. And this might be with basic things. I've had team members that ran a meeting and it was a freaking disaster. They had no agenda. It went nowhere. ⁓ And I'm like, my God, like ⁓ what how could you not realize this is the way you would run a meeting? And my first instinct was like, ugh, like, should they even be doing this? And then I said to myself, no.

May yeah, this person obviously did not realize they need to structure a meeting in a certain way. And so we sat down and we said, Hey, ⁓ how'd that meeting go? And they said, I think it went okay. And I'll say, Yeah, I mean, I think there was ⁓ it it ⁓ sure it went okay, but there were some pretty big things that we want to fine-tune because we want to make sure we come away from these meetings with a clear plan and everybody knows what to prepare. And the way we get there is by having an agenda.

Lia (00:12:43)
And it's not just by sending the agenda out, then we got to manage the agenda. ⁓ And if you're gonna get through these three things, and on number two, everyone starts spinning in the wrong direction, owning the room and saying, Hey, you know, let's table that for another meeting. I've got notes on like, you I'm seeing there's a lot of discussion here. Or asking, do we wanna actually pivot to this? ⁓ Owning it, having command over the meeting, and then ending a few minutes early to discuss action items, ⁓ please.

My friends, we always have to have actions if it's a meeting, right? If there's no actions, I don't know. Was it even a meeting? So ⁓ this is how we are giving feedback. Something didn't go well, we don't just take it away. We talk through, hey, here's what worked, here's what didn't, and you have the person relay back what they're gonna do different next time. That's the loop that closes the mana micromanagement cycle is the feedback. Is not just feeling like,

Beating yourself up, I knew I shouldn't have let it go, I knew I shouldn't have done that. Look what happened, here we go, and getting in this rabbit hole. No, we don't have to do that. We give the feedback, we give the person another opportunity. And if it becomes a pattern, okay, there's a different conversation. That person's either not ready for that responsibility or that task, that person needs training, or they need maybe to shadow someone, or they need

More feedback on what's working, what's not. That's all separate, right? It doesn't mean you should be micromanaging. Micromanaging never gets you the outcome you want. And you know it. That's why you're listening to this. But it feels like this, ⁓ I have to. And these things, ⁓ expectation setting, getting really clear on when you're gonna check in and how that's gonna go, and giving feedback around where something's not going well. And actually, really importantly, if the person nails it.

Give feedback on that. Say, hey, I handed off this meeting. I loved how you had a clear agenda. ⁓ You really had a command over the meeting. We ended with action items. That was awesome. Let's really have that be the process for every meeting. Now that person knows exactly what to reproduce. So you don't have to come back in because it was a fluke, like ⁓ they did a meeting agenda once and they were like, well, I don't really know if I need to do this. You want to reinforce the good too. That is the way you stop micromanaging. And the more you do that, and the more you do that.

Lia (00:15:06)
The more your team members step up, the more they're proactively solving problems, and the less they rely on you because they feel like, okay, I both am expected to be doing this stuff on my own and I am equipped to do so. All right. See you next time.