If it’s hurts, stop doing it : you don’t need to know everything

The best managers are great at delegation.

Micromanagement is exhausting. It’s stressful. And it creates delays and bugs because you become a black hole for ideas and improvements. You end up working longer hours. The job becomes painful.

So save yourself. Teach your team how you want feedback. Teach them what documentation makes sense. Make sure they highlight problems. And I’ll always make sure I’m available to answer questions in the stand-up, but 7 times out of 10, someone else beats me to it.

I don’t know everything, and I shouldn’t. A good manager is a catalyst for communication and generates questions to help. They’ll connect the problems with someone who can resolve them, and save some time to learn about the next problem.

Don’t be a bottleneck. Don’t be a critical path. Be a gardener and help the team grow. If it hurts, you might be strangling the team. Trust them and share the load.

Delegate, but make sure the important knowledge doesn’t go on holiday when your staff do.