Balancing micro-management and macro-management in your new startup

We’ve all worked in an office where the boss was either constantly nagging us and looking over our shoulders, or completely neglected their employees and focused too much on the bigger picture. But now that you’re thinking of, or already own a business, it can be easy to see why your former employer would go to such extremes to either ensure everything in their business was running correctly. However, striking a balance is something that can be extremely difficult and the remedy depends on what type of business you run, the office culture you have and also the type of staff you lead.

Entrusting your business to your team

One of the biggest issues with balancing the two is that you have to trust your team. If you don’t entrust your business to them, then it’s natural that you’re going to start looking over their shoulders, stalking their activity and making sure they’re actually working. Trust in business isn’t something that should be taken lightly. It has to be earned and your employees need to show that they’re trustworthy if they want autonomy.

However, trust isn’t a one-way street and you need to give your employees some trust as well. See how they handle tasks when they’re not given direction and take note of how creative they are when there’s no one to guide them. If they can successfully manage tasks on their own and still work hard for the sake of your business (and their own job security) then they’re deserving of your trust. This is when you can entrust the longevity of your business to your employees, and this is when you can start removing your micro-management antics.

Using software and services to help

There are plenty of business management services that can be outsourced, but there’s also software and management systems such as SAP Business One. These are usually very affordable services to rely on if you have a company that produces a lot of data that has to be managed. For instance, it could give you detailed real-time reports of how your employees are doing, you can track specific metrics that you choose, and they are all-in-one packages that assist in the management and success of your business.

Most tech-savvy businesses understand the importance of using technology to improve your business, and management services are just one of the many types of services that you’ll make ample use of in your company. If you aren’t a tech-savvy company yet, then it’ll pay in the future if you start using software in order to help you ease into the role of a business leader.

Don’t bite off more than you can chew

One of the biggest problems when balancing micro-management and macro-management is that both can lead to taking on more tasks than you would like to. For instance, if you micro-manage a dozen of your employees, then it can quickly lead to stressful days where you aren’t able to keep an eye on everyone’s work. Similarly, if you macro-manage too often, then you might be focusing on too many projects at once and it leads to an inefficient business.

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