Are You Ready to Be an 'Off-Leash' Boss? Six leaders share how they hit the right balance between full-blown autonomy and micromanaging their employees.
By BIZ Experiences Staff Edited by Frances Dodds
This story appears in the January 2023 issue of BIZ Experiences. Subscribe »
1. Autonomy, above all.
"I believe in giving as much autonomy as possible — so much so that we, the founders, need to be retrained periodically on how our systems work. For example, we recently spent a full day at our warehouse learning how to pick and pack orders, print shipping labels, and ship to our customers. You could see how proud the warehouse team was of what they'd built, and we were thrilled that barely anything required our input." — Dan Demsky, founder and CEO, Unbound Merino
2. Ask leading questions.
"When I do have to intervene, I follow the Socratic method: I challenge my team with the right questions so they can reach the answer themselves. Ahead of a product launch, the key angles of communication didn't feel right to me. So I sat the team down and asked questions I hoped would lead them to the issue with the tone. We ended up with communication that's both scientific and personable." — Lena Korres, cofounder and brand president, Korres
Related: How Effective Employee Communication Boosts Productivity
3. Keep the line open, always.
"Staying on track comes down to two simple things: open communication and not waiting until the end to review. For example, we were working with an external agency for our recent packaging update. After quite a bit of back and forth, we all knew we weren't getting what we envisioned. A quick huddle and a ton of honesty helped us quickly decide that we were going to cut ties and bring the project in-house." — Miki Dosen, vice president of marketing, Vega
4. Share experiences. Don't give orders.
"I've learned that toxic hires can impact layers of people and productivity, and recently, I watched an executive try to mitigate one such person's impact. I could have just told them to let the person go, but instead I shared my experience, and that this situation could be different. Sometimes it helps to add a timeline: 'You decide, but it's gotta be fixed in 30 days.'" — Daina Trout, cofounder and CMO, Health-Ade
Related: The 5 Habits of Successful Employee Management
5. Be willing to have tough talks.
"Dead ends are subjective, but when someone is spinning their wheels, correcting them is usually as simple as having a sometimes uncomfortable conversation. I want to understand their perspective, share mine, and find a way to align. Recently, an employee seemed distracted, and when we checked in, it turned out they had family matters cropping up, and their entire house was testing positive for COVID." — Lauren Haynes, founder and CEO, Wooden Spoon Herbs
6. Have a framework for intervention.
"I expect mistakes, but I know some matter more than others. So before getting involved, I ask three questions: One, are there trade-offs involved that would compromise our vision, values, or brand? Two, does it commit us to an expensive but uncertain path that would be hard to reverse? Three, could it create a strategic mistake that would give the competition an upper edge? Otherwise, I let people run with things." — Anu Sharma, cofounder and CEO, Millie
