The short comes of centralized management

In the last few days I have been trying to lease some apartments for few of our clients through a real estate agent, but each time we visit some locations and make a decision on certain units, the real estate agent would tell us he will have to call his boss before he can gives us a final price. This delay in decision making cost us time and cost us losing some units we liked because by the time we get the answer from the boss, those units would be leased to someone else.

This type of centralized management style is prevalent in some parts of the world, for me, it only serves to add extra work load to already busy managers and serves to limit the ability of the staff to think of their on feet.

In my daily work as manager, I have made it clear to my staff that I will not interfere in their work as long as they follow the broad guidelines I set for them. This policy gives me the time to focus on more important issues and also train the staff to think and make proper decisions in case I am out of reach.