Are you a Micro or a Macro Manager?

What is your management style? Are you a macro or micro manager? Where is it appropriate to use micro management and where is it appropriate to use macro management?

I think your company setup and your staff education level will detect what type of management is more appropriate. In small companies, it’s obvious you will interact more with your staff even if there is no communication involved, versus a large corporation where your staff may be located in various offices in the building or even some of your staff may be working off-site.

Some of your employees will require little supervision in order for them to do their job, others may not work well on their own and they will require constant supervision and feedback from you.

So how do you decide which management style to use and when to use it?

I developed the following guidelines for myself to follow:

1- On your first days as a manager, set your objectives and make them clear to everyone involved
2- Make a good observation of your staff and make a good assessment of their knowledge and skills
3- Make a list of your staff and write next to each name the level of supervision they will need
4- You will find in your staff one or two leaders who will adapt your vision quickly and will work with you to build on your vision - utilize their skills to micro manage and monitor feedback to you - this will allow you to continue with your continuous improvement and action plans
5- Other staff members may be less willing or may not see your vision as clearly as you see it, here’s where you will need closer supervision and constant feedback
6- As a manger, you will need to find the balance between micro management and macro management

As a manager, I would walk away from a job that requires great level of micro management, as a manager, your time should be spent more on vision building and leading, than spending it on mentoring.