The Boardroom Beat #32 - Helicopter Managers Are Bad Business

Move over helicopter parents; Make room for your successors. Helicopter managers are the new sociological phenomena. In fact, micromanaging employees is not new, and an increased remote workforce has exacerbated the phenomena.

As with parenting, a manager’s hovering attention to detail is often well intended. From COVID was born managerial vigilance to combat employee isolation and disengagement. Now, many leaders struggle to get it right; The slope is slippery from ensuring that an employee feels supported with helpful guard rails and timely check-ins..…to hovering watchfulness with lack of trust in remote performance. As employees onboard and career track in remote and hybrid environments, fostering independence and initiative is more important than ever.

As with parenting, a manager’s hovering attention to detail is often detrimental. Sacrificing their own strategic bandwidth is the least of the problems. Micromanaging employees squelches their initiative, diminishes their ability to carry out tasks independently, and increases their attachment to comfort zones. By buffering reports from challenge, managers hinder the development of employee resilience. 

To continue the analogous leap comparing parental to managerial helicoptering I’ll continue with personal parenting examples of my four children……and correlating business recommendations.

Child #1: Her senior year of college this daughter had interviewed but been passed over for several roles. She came home to prep for a final interview for a role she really wanted. With candor (and perhaps a deficiency of delicacy) I’ll never forget the morning I sent her off in a puddle of tears to an interview. I asserted, “This is not a Miss Congeniality competition. Dial up your professional tone and example based responses, dial down sorority girl sweetness.” She got the job and knocked it out of the park in that role and in the subsequent promotions that followed.

At the Office: Encourage and mentor your employees, but not at the expense of giving them the tools they need to succeed. Trust them to be resilient and apply the wisdom you have shared. Remember, being “kind” is not always the same as being “nice.” Give feedback that helps.

Child #2: This marvelous human struggled with decision making. It is both flattering to be needed, and tempting to prescribe a path forward. By choosing instead to be a sounding board and asking questions to guide independent decision making I saw this daughter make transformational decisions that made me proud. She moved to Spain where she taught for two years and lived a life robust with travel and adventure. 

At the Office: Answer questions with questions! 
*    What do you think? 
*    How might you figure that out?
*    What’s your gut tell you?
*    What’s the business case?
Watch and wait. Your employees will catch on and start coming to you to vet their own ideas instead of relying on yours. They will move on to confidently executing their own ideas. Welcome to more time for strategic bandwidth.
 

Child #3: This daughter lived in the shadow of older siblings who talked for her and did things for her. She was reticent to use her voice; Asking a server at a restaurant to fill her water was cause for angst and dread. She turned out to be a highly recruited collegiate athlete and (prior to ensuing NCAA restrictions) conversations with college coaches started at the tender age of 13. I guided her preparation for conversations and then stepped away - completely away. She blossomed with congenial confidence and enjoyed a fruitful recruitment process. No one who knows this self-possessed and highly independent young professional would ever guess at the fact that speaking up to anyone for anything was ever highly daunting.

At the Office: Push employees out of their comfort zones. Suggest projects they might lead, client presentations in which they might play a role, skip level meetings at which they might represent you. Set them up for success with preparation and encouragement.

Child #4: This high school kid has researched numerous passive revenue ideas. Instead of discouraging his initiative I question his research, sources, and risk exposure. The shoes he bought online from an offshore source with intent of resale for high margin were a poor quality knock off; Unless he perpetuated the unethical representation of the product on his own inventory the business model was flawed. His beta product investment was minimal, and he moved on to a business service idea. The window washing business he started last summer at age 15 netted an impressive hourly rate. He invested in professional equipment for year two, created marketing promotions using CANVA, and tracks clients with a CRM. He even donates 10% of profits, hence demonstrating and awareness of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

At the office: Encourage curiosity an innovation. With guard rails in place allow failure. Celebrate initiative and success. 

Somehow my children not only survived our parenting, but they also thrived! From NON helicopter parent analogies come these managerial tips:

1.    Give real feedback.
2.    Encourage problem solving.
3.    Push beyond comfort zones.
4.    Encourage innovation - Allow failure.