Versatile software engineer with a background in .NET consulting and CMS development. Working on regaining my embedded development skills to get more involved with IoT opportunities.
I have found a great question to discriminate between "hands-on" and micromanaging to be "is my team more or less productive when I talk to them?" I had one boss who would refuse to leave my desk until I could give an exact estimate he would hold me accountable to on a problem. I don't know about you, but sometimes I have no clue how long something will take until I have 20-30 minutes to dig into it and figure out what I am talking about.There were times when he would lecture me for up to an hour, during which time I probably could have finished the freaking task.
When I was briefly a team lead, I just made sure I knew what everyone was working on at all times. It may have been a little different because it was the consulting world, so I just wanted to make sure everyone was working on the projects I thought they were working on and making forward progress (I didn't ask about progress, I would check burndown charts and if a task had made 0 progress for a day or two, something was definitely wrong and we needed to figure out a plan together).
I made sure they had time to time to talk and ask questions. If they had any concerns or doubts, I wanted to know so I could get answers for them. If there were workplace problems, I needed to deal with them. I'd start the conversation allowing them to talk, and generally I would learn what I needed to without having to even ask that many direct questions once I gained their trust.
Maybe I just got lucky, but my team trusted me fully and I figure that means I must have been doing something right.
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I have found a great question to discriminate between "hands-on" and micromanaging to be "is my team more or less productive when I talk to them?" I had one boss who would refuse to leave my desk until I could give an exact estimate he would hold me accountable to on a problem. I don't know about you, but sometimes I have no clue how long something will take until I have 20-30 minutes to dig into it and figure out what I am talking about.There were times when he would lecture me for up to an hour, during which time I probably could have finished the freaking task.
When I was briefly a team lead, I just made sure I knew what everyone was working on at all times. It may have been a little different because it was the consulting world, so I just wanted to make sure everyone was working on the projects I thought they were working on and making forward progress (I didn't ask about progress, I would check burndown charts and if a task had made 0 progress for a day or two, something was definitely wrong and we needed to figure out a plan together).
I made sure they had time to time to talk and ask questions. If they had any concerns or doubts, I wanted to know so I could get answers for them. If there were workplace problems, I needed to deal with them. I'd start the conversation allowing them to talk, and generally I would learn what I needed to without having to even ask that many direct questions once I gained their trust.
Maybe I just got lucky, but my team trusted me fully and I figure that means I must have been doing something right.
Scott - thanks so much for taking the time and writing a thoughtful comment. Super awesome!!!