How to not micromanage your team in 2025

And be way less stressed as a result

Hey team! Happy Tuesday

I’m writing to you once again from a train to London. Today we welcomed our second employee into FLW, we’re currently in the onboarding phase and I take onboarding very seriously, so I’ll do a full video on this for you soon.

But right now, we have arrived at Week 3 of your Ultimate Manager Reset Challenge…

How to not micromanage your team in 2025

If you’re the kind of boss who gets caught up in the detail and asks to be cc’d on emails, or you said to yourself more than once last year ‘It’d be quicker if I just did it myself’, then - there’s no kind way to say this - you’re a micromanager.

I know, because I was one too. Accidentally.

I know that as a leader we want to support as best possible and make sure our team produces high-quality work that meets expectations and deadlines.

But often, that support accidentally becomes control, getting in the way of productivity and damaging morale.

The impact of micromanagement

A survey revealed:

• 71% of employees believe micromanagement interferes with their job performance

• 36% left their job because of it

Jason Brown, founder and CEO of Approved Costs said

“Intentional or not, it produces an intimidating environment within the workplace causing employees to become incompetent.”

Whichever way you look at it, micromanaging doesn’t work.

We think we’re:

• Keeping the standard of work high

• Helping everyone hit deadlines and keep things moving

But really, we’re just:

• Becoming a bottleneck - Nothing can go out the door without our approval, so we’re holding up the pace.

• Stunting innovation - Your team daren’t experiment for fear of failure, keeping us stuck and building a team that only tick off tasks. No new ideas come to the table; the world innovates around us, and we’re eventually left behind.

• Creating huge workloads for ourselves - Micromanagers don’t delegate well, so you’re just giving yourself a bigger workload.

• Limiting growth in your career - It might be possible to closely supervise a team of 3–4 as a micromanager, but it’s not sustainable for a large team, so you’re stunting the possibilities of your own growth.

Now don’t worry, I am very soon going to tell you exactly what I have done to get out of micromanager mindset.

But before I do, I want to acknowledge that this is hard.

It’s tough when we have pressure from above, and naturally that pressure is going to seep into our work.

Or when we see our team performing badly, and we just can’t help but to get involved and tell them exactly what to do.

I get it - I really do. Micromanaging often feels like the safest option when you're under pressure or when the stakes are high. But it rarely solves the problem. It only creates new ones: burnout, resentment, and a lack of trust on both sides.

So, how do we strike the balance? How do we support our team without holding their hands at every step? Let’s dive into practical ways I started to manage effectively - but without accidentally micromanaging.

How to not micromanage your team

The quick actions:

• Turn off notifications - When you’re the person who responds in 10 seconds to every message, or jumps in to rescue at the smallest sign of inconvenience, you are unintentionally micromanaging. You can slow down your responses and train your team to be self-sufficient by simply turning off notifications.
  All of them. Emails. Teams/Slack. Calendar.
  I can’t tell you how much this helped me a few years back. I promise you will not miss anything.

• Write up your job description - We can’t control what we can’t measure. That includes where we spend our time.
  When I wrote out a clear job description, outlining where I was spending most of my time, I really started to see where all my energy was going. And where it was being wasted.
  (More on why this is important in moment)

The mindset shift: Learning to let go

Micromanaging usually comes from a place of good intention, like the desire for things to go smoothly, to avoid mistakes, and to ensure outcomes meet expectations.

But holding on too tightly exhausts you and stops any hope of growth. Research shows that teams with autonomy are more engaged and productive, with a 20% improvement in overall performance when compared to teams led by micromanagers. Letting go is a proven strategy for success.

Here’s how you can start letting go effectively:

1. Release the small tasks
   Begin by delegating tasks that are time-consuming but not mission-critical. This allows your team to develop ownership and decision-making skills while freeing you to focus on higher-level priorities.

2. Pause before checking in
   When the urge to micromanage creeps in, resist it. Instead, give people the space to solve problems independently. Employees are 57% less likely to be stressed when they feel trusted by their managers (Gallup study).

3. Embrace mistakes as learning opportunities
   Encourage a culture where mistakes are seen as part of growth. I use "failure KPIs" - metrics that allow space for experimentation to create psychological safety and reduce the fear of failure.

4. Schedule blackout time
   Make yourself intentionally unavailable for 4 hours a day. This simple practice forces your team to rely on their judgment and builds resilience. It’s also beneficial for you.

When you let go your team begins to flourish. People will amaze you with their creativity, initiative, and resourcefulness.

The hardest part of this mindset shift is trusting that things won’t fall apart when you step back. But trust me, your team is more capable than you think. Give them the space to shine, and they will.

And if they don’t, and they truly do need more support, we need to move into performance management. But that’s a whole other blog post!

Situational Examples

I’ve broken down 2 key situations in the table below, but I’d love to hear any other situations you come across where you feel the need to keep a keen eye on your team. Let me know in the comments and I’ll break it down for you…

Peace,

H

P.S We now have an official date for Fresh Start re-opening eek. 21st Jan we are going LIVE, and this time with some extra special new bonuses.

Join the waitlist so you don’t miss out on all the launch info.