Hands-Off Is NOT a Helpful Leadership Style

Joan is a flawless boss. Chief Medical Officer at a highly regarded Biotech firm, Joan is a seasoned pro who knows her stuff. She leads her team with a compelling strategic vision, clear directives, and then she lets them run with it.

It’s a gorgeously mature leadership style.

It works beautifully. Until it doesn’t.

Her style implodes when members of her team fail to execute.

I don’t like to hover over them, Joan explains to me. I would hate to be the micromanager from hell.

There is a beautiful playground between being the leader who nurtures and the micromanager from the dark side. The leader who nurtures helps, coaches, guides, sets her team members up for success.

Taking a completely laissez-faire approach, on the other hand, doesn’t serve anyone. It will likely keep you anxious and wondering. And you will quickly become the leader who isn’t actually leading.

I hire professional help and then micromanage them until they walk out the door.”
Anonymous

A 2021 article in Harvard Business Review - How to Help (Without Micromanaging) by Colin M. Fisher, Teresa M. Amabile and Julianna Pillemer (HBR January/February 2021) – got me thinking about this perennial dilemma. The authors hail from University College London’s School of Management, Harvard Business School and NYU’s Stern School of Business. They spent the last 10 years studying how effective leaders offer help without micromanaging.

Their research suggests 3 specific strategies that will help you to be a hands-on boss who doesn’t micromanage:

Time your help so it comes when people are ready for it.
Clarify that your role is to be a helper.
Align the rhythm of your involvement – its intensity and frequency – with people’s specific needs.

In my experience as an Executive Coach, this is not as easy as it sounds. Joan, well-intended as she is, is the leader who eschews the subtleties of helping. Helping well requires, as the authors suggest, situational astuteness and finesse. And the ability to slip in and out of different ways of inhabiting your leadership role.

Make HELPING Part of Your Culture

Talk about the notion of helping others to be successful. Make it explicit. Explain that help comes in many forms and moves in many different directions. Demonstrate that you are not a know-it-all boss or the smartest person in the room. Talk about how you receive help – from your own boss, from a coach or an advisory team. Show how asking for help and receiving help are not a sign of weakness.

Approach your team members for help when they may be able to do so. Live the famous Steve Jobs quote: It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do. We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do. These are all ways in which you create a culture of help where you helping your team is just that – HELP, not micromanagement.

Relate Beyond the 1:1

Think of venturing beyond the traditional “standing 1:1 meeting” with a member of your team. You run the danger of having a predictable work cadence with this team member - and then you suddenly swoop in and hover in the midst of a perceived crisis. Anxiety levels rise, as do the endless possibilities for micromanagement.

Most of the executives I support opt for a different engagement style with their team members. More frequent short calls. Impromptu, unscheduled. Texting. Just to say hi. The chat can be about work or personal matters. 10 minutes or less. The intent is not to check up on your team member. No, you choose to stay in relationship. The relationship is informal and unforced. Needs for help and support have a forum to easily emerge.

Do NOT Help Preemptively

You mean well. Your team is about to embark on a critical project, and you want them to be prepared for everything that might derail things. You gather for a meeting, and you “lay it all on them” in this meeting. Cover all potential scenarios. You let the team know what you have done in the past when “things went wrong." You shower your team members with tips and advice. You’re proud of how pro-active you are.

You think you’re helping. Please note: You’re helping when no help is needed yet. You have created alarm when no alarm has sounded yet. You’re micromanaging before any of this micromanagement is possibly warranted. Thinking of potential challenges can be helpful, of course. Let you team drive this conversation, not you. Otherwise, it is more likely a case of your Ego running amok. Stop yourself, please.

Contract Your HELP with your Team

If you notice that in the midst of a project one or several team members are struggling, resist the urge to swoop in and take over. Consider a more collaborative approach. Tell your team members what you observe and brainstorm possible ways of addressing a challenge or bottleneck. Make it a “together” conversation.

If you have an idea for getting involved in a hands-on way, propose it. Be clear about the depth of the involvement you propose and the length of it. Test to see if the idea of your help resonates. Chances are, your team members will feel a bit of inner pressure to accept your help. Understood. When they do, however, you have established explicit boundaries for your help. You have consciously contracted. And you have not become the jerk-boss who took over because, well, you could.

The urge to help is primal. Honor it. Being the boss who disappears buries this very primal part of you.

But please get your Ego out of the way. Be clear that, at times, helping might mean you allow the other person to learn from making a mistake. At other times it might involve some in-the-moment coaching. Or sending a team member to a training class. Hovering is NOT help. Constant correction is NOT helping.

If you have any inclinations toward micromanagement, notice how much more enjoyable it is for you to lead without doing so. Notice what a relief it is. And how much more they appreciate your leadership style.

Go and help well. And feel the relief.

The Dopamine Rewards of Business Writing

Does compelling business writing matter anymore? I mean, really matter? In a time of texting, tweeting, keywords, hashtags, tiktok, sound-bites and the rapid-fire scanning of emails – does anyone still care about a well-crafted message?

Ok, that was a hypothetical question.

My friend Victor accepted a new Senior Director of HR role at a biotech company. 6 weeks later, when Denise, Head of HR, called him into her office and informed him that he would be assigned a writing coach, it was clear to Victor – and me – that writing, indeed, still matters. Victor had sailed through 4 rounds of interviews with personal charm and confident answers. Nobody had bothered to check a writing sample.

When Denise broached the topic, Victor felt like a shameful secret had been exposed.

Bill Brichard is a writing coach. An article Brichard wrote for The Harvard Business Review got me thinking about all this (Brichard, “The Science of Strong Business Writing,“ July/August 2021). Brichard’s article is chock-full of writing-impact-research-data. Neurobiology supports some of the “good-business-writing-tips” you were likely taught in school. And it held a surprise or two for me.

Good writing, explains Brichard, gets the reader’s dopamine flowing in the area of the brain known as the reward circuit. Great writing releases opioids that turn on reward hot spots. Just like good food, a soothing bath, or an enveloping hug, well-executed prose makes us feel pleasure, which makes us want to keep reading.

The most valuable of talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”
Thomas Jefferson

Think of your writing. Does it get anyone’s dopamine going? Do YOU activate brain hot spots?

Researchers used to believe that the reward circuits which keep a reader engaged respond predominantly to sensory cues. Kent Berridge, a neuroscientist from the University of Michigan, explains that “it’s become clear in the past 50 years from neuroimaging studies that all kinds of social and cultural rewards can also activate this system.”

Whoa. Sounds a little overwhelming, right? Which specific writing techniques truly DO activate the neural wiring in our readers’ brains?

Brichard offers 8 key tips: Writing that is simple, specific, surprising, stirring, seductive, smart, social or story-driven. In the spirit of the first item on Brichard’s list, let me further simplify.

4 Writing Tips That Activate Neural Circuits

Simplicity

It’s the classic. Keep it simple. The neuroscience behind it is entirely common-sense. Simplicity increases what scientists call the brain’s “processing fluidity.” Short sentences, familiar words and clean syntax ensure that the reader doesn’t have to exert too much brainpower to understand your meaning.

Data point after data point proves that it is so. A study conducted by Tsuyoshi Okuhara at the University of Tokyo, for example, gave 400 subjects aged 40-69 material to read about how to exercise for better health. Half received highly detailed and somewhat technical content, the other half received a significantly abbreviated edit of the same material. The group that read the simple version, presented in shorter words and sentences, expressed a lot more confidence in being able to succeed with the suggested behaviors.

Trust the basics, please: Cut extraneous words and use the active voice. Distill to what is truly essential. Discard ancillary information. Your readers’ brain response will reward you.

Surprise

Our brains are wired to make predictions. This includes guessing the next word in every line of text. Deliver consistently on these predictions, and what is at first comforting can become predictable and dull. Surprise your reader with an unexpected phrase, analogy, word, and the surprise will spike deeper brain engagement.

Research conducted by Jonah Berger and Katherine Milkman saw the impact of surprising content when they examined nearly 7,000 articles that appeared online in the New York Times. The articles that were rated as surprising were 14% more likely to be mailed to others.

I am not a car geek, but Dan Neil’s lusciously written car columns in the Weekend edition of The Wall Street Journal have me showing up for more, every Saturday. Neil is a master of surprise writing. His March 3 review of the 2024 Maserati MC20 Cielo starts as follows: I went to a garden party in Los Angeles last month, to celebrate with my rich friends …

Now, I am not obsessed with Maseratis or rich people – but darn it, this is the opening of a car review, and I WILL keep reading.

Seductiveness

As humans, we’re wired to savor anticipation. One famous study showed that people are often happier planning a vacation than they are after taking one. Scientists call the reward “anticipatory utility.” Dan Neil’s just-quoted snippet of writing is a fine example of anticipation-in-action. Even though I don’t actually care about Maseratis, I want to know what he will say about the party – and how he will connect the party people to this new car model he's writing about.

A more mundane way to create anticipation is starting a report or email with a question. Pose your customer problem as a conundrum. Define your product development work as solving a mystery. Put readers in a state of uncertainty so that you can lead them to something better. That is, in fact, how this Post kicked off.

Social Connection

Our brains are wired to crave human connection, even in what we read. Consider a study of reader’s responses to different kinds of literary excerpts - some with vivid descriptions of people or their thoughts, others without such focus. The passages that included people activated the areas of participants’ brains that interpret social signals, which in turn triggered their reward circuits.

In your business writing you likely won’t rely on explicit character development - unless you include a pertinent anecdote or a client case study. But there are other ways of satisfying your readers’ desire to connect with you. There are subtle ways of revealing yourself and inviting your reader into your writing. Think voice, worldview, vocabulary choice, wit, syntax, poetic rhythm. And whenever possible, humanize the matter you’re describing. If you wish to make a point about a supply chain challenge, don’t describe the problem as a “trucking disconnect.” Write instead about mixed signals between the driver and dispatcher.

All writing is craft. Craft can be learned. Improvement comes with intentional practice.

Keep activating your readers’ reward circuits. The 4 areas I have highlighted – simplicity, surprise, seductiveness and social connection - are a fine place to start.

Funny thing I know as a writer – when I practice my craft with intention, I not only fire up my readers’ reward circuits, I fire up my own. I keep surprising myself. And that is one of our four great writing habits, isn’t it? Oh, what joy.

The Art of NOT Micro-Managing.

Nobody likes a micromanaging boss.

If you have ever worked for a boss who line-edits your written communications for you, you know.

Eeeek.

If you are the leader of a business team, I feel for you. Taking a completely laissez-faire approach about the endeavors of your team members doesn’t serve them - and it will likely keep you anxious and wondering. You will quickly become the leader who isn’t actually leading.

What is a helpful rhythm for engaging with your team? Especially if some of your team members are less seasoned than you would like, and you perhaps don’t entirely trust their ability to tackle a complex challenge. How do you set them up for success without abandoning them?

I hire professional staff and then micromanage them until they walk out the door."
Anonymous

A 2021 article in Harvard Business Review - How to Help (Without Micromanaging) by Colin M. Fisher, Teresa M. Amabile and Julianna Pillemer (HBR January/February 2021) – got me thinking about this perennial dilemma. The authors hail from University College London’s School of Management, Harvard Business School and NYU’s Stern School of Business. They have spent the last 10 years studying how effective leaders offer help without micromanaging.

Their research suggests 3 specific strategies will help you to be a hands-on boss who doesn’t micromanage:

Time your help so it comes when people are READY for it.
Clarify that your role is to be a helper.
Align the rhythm of your involvement – its intensity and frequency – with people’s specific needs.

Reads nicely, right? In my experience as an Executive Coach, this is not as easy as it sounds. Helping well requires situational astuteness and finesse. And the ability to slip in and out of different ways of inhabiting your leadership role.

How To Operationalize Being Helpful

1. Make HELPING Part of the Lingo

2. Be in Relationship More Frequently

Think of venturing beyond the traditional “standing 1:1 meeting” with a member of your team. You run the danger of having a predictable if unexciting work cadence with this team member - and then you suddenly swoop in and hover in the midst of a perceived crisis. Anxiety levels rise, as do the possibilities for micromanagement.

3. Do NOT Help Preemptively

You think you’re helping. Please note: You’re helping when no help is needed yet. You have created alarm when no alarm has sounded yet. You’re micromanaging before any of this micromanagement is possibly warranted. Thinking of potential challenges can be helpful, of course. Let your team drive this conversation, not you. Otherwise, it is more likely a case of your Ego running amok. Stop.

4. Contract Your HELP with your Team Member

The urge to help is primal, universal, timeless. It’s a wonderful urge. Honor it. But please get your Ego out of the way. Be clear that, at times, helping might mean allowing the other person to learn from making a mistake. At other times, it might require some in-the-moment coaching. Or sending a team member to a training class. Hovering is not help. Constant correction is not helping.

Go and help well. If you have any inclinations toward micromanaging, notice how much more enjoyable it is for you to lead without doing so. Notice what a relief it actually is. And how much more appreciated your leadership is.

Be relieved. And manage your urge.

*Image by storyset on Freepik

WHY Don’t You Appreciate Them MORE?

Appreciation, Voltaire wrote, is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

Beautiful sentiment.

A no-brainer, right? Yet almost every individual I have coached over the last two decades doesn’t appreciate the contributions of others enough.

Well, let me clarify. They don’t EXPRESS their appreciation enough.

This lack of appreciation-expression is most startling when it comes to how we relate to an authority figure. All sorts of conditioning, explicit or subliminal, about how we behave around folks with power comes into play.

It’s not pretty.

Chances are, you have been taught about “managing UP.” The art of managing a perhaps mercurial, distracted, at times unavailable and often unpredictable boss. If you have worked in the corporate world long enough, you have likely taken a class on this essential leadership skill.

Hint: Know their priorities. Speak their language. Anticipate their needs. Be truthful and don’t BS them. Contract properly at the end of a meeting. Just a few of the essentials.

Chances are, as well, that no one in your class spoke about “appreciating UP.”

You do your best to express appreciation to the folks on your team. You may forget and you may not do it perfectly, but you know that it’s a good idea.

You do, however, little to explicitly appreciate your boss. It’s a potent influencing behavior, and yet, bosses rarely receive a word of praise or appreciation. From anyone. Yes, it’s lonely at the top, in more ways than one.

Here are some of the myths and beliefs that shape how we engage with an authority figure.

3 Boss Appreciation Myths

1. I don’t want to waste their time.

My boss’s time is precious. I want to be prepared, get to the point, and show that I respect how busy s/he is.

Fact: Your boss is a human being with feelings, no matter how efficient her or his outer demeanor may be. The longing for appreciation is universal. Expressing appreciation is never a waste of time. Do not conflate being efficient with not expressing an important thought or feeling – which includes appreciation.

2. I don’t want to sound like I’m sucking UP.

I’ve watched other people suck up to Senior Leaders and it just looks and sounds so totally obvious. I don’t ever want to become one of THOSE people!

Fact: Even when it looks like sucking up to you, chances are your boss appreciates hearing it. Dump the phrase “sucking up” and supplement it with the phrase “expressing genuine appreciation.” That’s what we’re talking about, after all. If your appreciation is heartfelt, your expression of this appreciation is an act of honest communication. Withholding the comment is an act over unnecessary filtering. You are choosing to be less authentic by not communicating an appreciative thought.

3. My boss is uncomfortable with personal chit-chat.

I don’t want to cross any personal boundaries with my boss or get into a conversation that becomes too private and which I will later regret. My boss isn’t a touchy-feely person.

Fact: Praising someone’s idea, expertise, or accomplishment is as safe as a professional conversation gets. It’s entirely about work. Your story about not getting too personal is likely about your discomfort in offering a personal remark to someone with high position power, not about that person’s discomfort in receiving such a remark from you.

I’m a big fan of Krista Tippett, host of NPR’s consistently inspiring “On Being” radio program. I vividly remember a chat she had with another hero of mine, renowned British poet and organizational advisor David Whyte, about leadership wisdom (Tippett, On Being, 4/7/2016). “Being a leader,” Whyte affirmed to Krist Tippett, “means being visible, all the time. It means truly showing up and not simply going through the motions of showing up.”

Being visible, fully showing up, includes noticing our appreciative thoughts AND having the courage to express them. To anyone. It also suggests we appreciate UP, discomfort and all.

If someone who reports to you offers a compliment or thanks you for something well done, you appreciate it, don’t you? You remember the comment, right?

Act in kind. Express your appreciation, in every direction. That includes UP.