Episode 138: The Courage to Let Go: Leading Without Micromanaging

We get it—when you’ve built something from the ground up, it’s hard to loosen your grip. You’ve poured your time, energy, and soul into your business. But if we’re being honest? Holding on too tightly is costing you growth, team trust, and your own sanity.

In this episode, we’re pulling back the curtain on something most leaders won’t admit out loud: micromanagement isn’t leadership—it’s fear wearing a power suit.

We talk about:

• Why micromanaging keeps you stuck and your team small
• How to train and empower people without losing control or quality
• The mindset shift that separates high-level leaders from hustle-weary managers
• Practical systems that give your team freedom and still deliver results

As entrepreneurs, we’re not just building businesses—we’re building movements. And movements require trust. Delegation. Strength. Systems.

We have the courage to lead. And real leadership? That’s letting go just enough so others can rise, too.

Press play and let’s trade control for impact.

Listen now and then tag us @pursuitofbadasserie with your biggest “aha” moments.

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Read the full transcript of this episode below:

 

Hey, I’m Lynn. And I’m Amanda. Welcome to the Pursuit of Badasserie, the podcast. Today, we’re talking about a subject which has come up a lot in the last couple of weeks for us and our clients.

And that is how to manage your team without micromanaging them. Yes. And when we say team, it doesn’t mean that they’re always employees.

It could be contractors. It could be. All kinds of team members. So we don’t want you to get fixated on.

It has to be employees. Managing your team without micromanaging is super important. I mean, even in a household, right?

Right. Lots of parents that micromanage. I think the phrase is helicopter parenting. Yeah. So think of a helicopter parent, but in the midst of dealing with your employees, even like potential strategic, even alliances, which I have a couple of stories around.

Yeah. I mean, when it comes to the micromanaging task, there, we know there’s a fine line between wanting things to go a certain way in your business and forcing them to go that way because you are doing all the things for everybody.

And it’s that same concept of you step away and the whole world falls apart and not a lot of that.

I mean, we’ll talk about that as well, but it’s, it’s because you’re over managing everybody that they don’t know how to do anything.

If you constantly put your kids clothes. You never make them do it themselves. They’re going to need to have their shirt put on for the rest of their lives.

It’s it’s you’ve got to teach people the skills that they need to do the job, whatever that job may be.

So it’s the same from a business perspective as well. You’ve got to teach your team. You’ve got to empower your team to do things and then know when to lead and how to lead so that it’s not doing it all for them and kind of negating the whole purpose of having a team.

Absolutely. I do want to give a story and I know you’ve kind of heard this one before, and I think I wrote about one of our books about the kid thing.

is I know I can get into, I wouldn’t say micromanaging, but also I would say special learn spread really thin.

Like I get into almost like obsessive compulsive and I need to know a bit more than what I need to know.

Right. Yeah. Um, but back when my kids were young, it was a bit worse. And I remember when we were because we’re super clean people, thank God my ex was as well, very organized.

Um, it tend to land on me, but, uh, when the kids. Um, I would go in after them and like clean things because they had their chores and then they also had pretty chores, which was kind of like a spring clean.

Don’t judge. I love this. And, um, and they’re growing out and they appreciate it. Uh, but I would go in and clean up after them and I would go, do they, I remember my ex sitting me down, my then husband sitting me down and saying, listen, you cannot do that.

You have to train them like what you could do better, like show them or have them redo it and figure it out and tell them this isn’t good enough.

And why? So that way they have some direction as you’re training them. Um, and it really made a difference because otherwise they would get lazier and lazier and lazier and like disconnected because they knew mom would come in and save the day and, um, pick up after them.

And essentially that is not like, we see this a lot in business, right? For sure. A lot in businesses, again, with contractors and with employees where, um, even if you delegate it out to that individual, people, if they don’t.

And that’s not the way we train others. And you’re not setting yourself up for success, nor them up for success.

And I think that that was like one of the messages to with OT and my ex, that definitely translates into the business world is I’m not empowering them, I’m enabling them to fall into this pattern of like, somebody else will come and save the day, I don’t have to show up my best.

I’m not really learning independent skill sets and also like drive and would be the word where they do without like initiative, initiative as well.

And it just has forever stayed in me and definitely building businesses have had to use that time and time again.

Yeah, absolutely. I think I want to challenge our listeners to really think if you see Constantly. It’s just faster if I do it myself.

It takes too long to train anybody. Nobody’s doing it right anyway. I have to do it. I have to come up and pick up the slack for every project, every tiny thing.

That might not be a them problem. It might be a you problem in that. I know that sounds terrible, but really when we think about it, you’re the problem and the solution.

Well, I’m laughing because I remember when I first brought the idea of having VAs with Amanda and we’re going to talk about that since white people don’t.

She’s like, no, I can just do it. I can do it. And now we can’t live with our team.

Like it’s incredible. I don’t know what I would do without my team. Don’t ever leave us. We love you.

Don’t ever leave us. But it really does. The more you find yourself saying that, the more I want you to look back, look in the mirror and really think about what is it you’re doing?

How are you setting up your systems and your team? And how is that reflecting? Because if your team constantly doesn’t know how to use the computer or open the security.

And I’m not saying like, this sticks with me because when I was a television producer years ago, my senior manager, I love her.

She’s, I still speak with her. She’s great. But I remember the first, one of the first things she said to me is like, if anything goes right on set, it’s, you know, make sure you give praise to the rest of the And if anything goes wrong, it’s always going to be your fault.

And that has stuck with me forever, knowing that no matter how bad things are, no matter whose fault it was, it’s absolutely my fault as the leader of that team.

In that case, it was on set, but even moving forward into all of my future careers, it really does stick with you that if something’s not working for business, look to yourself first, because there might be a route there.

That is your fault. So when it comes to managing or disconnect, correct. Yeah. So when it comes to managing your team, you know, one of the biggest.

Thanks. And we’ve talked about this, I don’t know how many times, but really creating that empowerment through clarity, making it crystal clear what your expectations are, what the objectives are, so that your team really feels empowered to take ownership of that task or that job.

If you just say, like, I want to have this done, and you don’t set up any parameters, or you just assume that we want to make $100,000 by the end of the year, but you don’t give them any guidelines, any tasks that are specific to that, you don’t give them any clear indication of what they’re supposed to be doing, how can you realistically expect them to meet those goals if you never gave them any clear expectations or objectives to reach?

Yeah. And I do want to put a disclaimer on that. Just because it’s clear to you, it’s not clear to them.

And half the time when Amanda and I start digging into somebody who says, it’s clear, blah, blah, blah, we have clarity.

And we start asking the person who says that it’s clear questions, it’s actually not clear to them either. And so I agree that that is definitely where you need to.

I think the next one is what holds up and gets micromanaging done too is the lack of trust, right?

Seeing them as less than as well and not looking at them in a, this is my team. I hired them.

They’re here for a reason or they’re here for a reason. Because if you don’t trust them, I would definitely say don’t go on a firing spree.

Like you need to question that. You need to definitely kind of analyze that. depending on how they, came across you or whatnot.

And I know trust needs to be built. Um, it’s not something that automatically happens. Then you need to start building that trust.

And maybe it’s micro, uh, not micromanaging, but micro tasks, right? So some things that maybe won’t make or break the business, but it helps them, it helps them build trust, but also you build trust with them.

And so trust, uh, because learning to let go, um, if you don’t have trust and if you don’t have clarity, that doesn’t give anybody the right roadmap.

But you also don’t know the end destination as well or what’s happening. Those two things are really important. then the letting go, you have to let go, like you have to allow it to be and not jump in because that’s also, you could, I don’t know how many times we’ve had this conversation and I know actually I’ve done this where I’ve like delegated and given them the whatever and they’re not doing it quick enough or not doing it fast enough and I dive in and take over.

I don’t fully let it go. I’m a bulldozer for sure. If it’s not getting done fast enough, I’ll just pull those in and do the thing.

And that’s something I’ve had to work on a lot. And, you know, really, when it comes to creating that trust, the easiest way to start is to delegate tasks that you know are within their strength set.

So if you hire them because they’re amazing at Facebook ads, don’t start them with Pinterest ads, start them with Facebook ads, build that trust, build them their confidence within the company, build that rapport and the systems you have for that.

And then gradually add on tasks that might be slightly outside the wheelhouse, but are others. Within the same vein, like you, if you’re trying to delegate stuff away, make sure it’s within the strength set of why you hired them in the first place.

And again, independent contractor or employee, there’s reasons you hire people. We hope. I hope it’s not just hiring because you need a body.

It’s the worst way to hire. Absolutely. It’s the worst way to hire. But when it comes to building that trust, even like not just the team trusting you, but you trusting the team when it goes both ways.

If you’re constantly setting them up to fail, they’re not going to trust you as a leader to give them the kinds of jobs that they can succeed in.

And if you’re giving them jobs they are never going to succeed in, then you’re not going to be able to trust the team.

So it goes both ways. But really starting out with something that you know is within their wheelhouse, that you know is their strength, will help set the whole team and you up for success as you’re delegating and as you’re working on letting go of the control.

Yeah, I think that there’s a little bit of like allowing people to be who you who you hired them to be right or who you brought them on to be and allowing.

And I’m actually gonna give you something that happened not too long ago. You know, we work with a lot of contractors.

I know I’m contracted out a lot with other organizations and we’ll say other people in the world to go in and train or do whatever.

And I recently have been being courted by a particular agency who wants me to come in and do some work with their huge corporate client.

And this individual who brought me on had to have several meetings with me and call an extra meeting because they want to make sure that I say the right things and do the right things.

And I had to say, listen, you brought me on for a reason. I, this isn’t my first rodeo. Like I have actually more senior than you in this industry.

Um, you were, you, I was also referred to you. Like you’ve been following me for a while, you know, my capabilities and you’re now ready.

I understand. I understand. And that you want this to go right. And I do understand that. And I appreciate it.

But I had to let you know, like, I got this. I respect you for wanting to make sure that we’re showing up on the right foot and that we’re on the right page.

But could you have approached this differently? Because this individual asked me to also mentor them. And so I had to call them out on their behavior because I understand as much as I understand.

Also, you don’t want to strangle it so much where, you have to control every little aspect. When you bring on contractors or when you bring on outside sources, like, you we have teams hire VAs or go on to Fiverr to do a website or do this or do that.

We’re not saying managing isn’t important, but there’s a difference between leadership managing and absolutely micromanaging. There’s a difference between having to have a say in every little thing and actually be able to like oversee and guide.

Right. Right. Um, and I think that that’s so important to know is like, regardless if they’re your employees, contractors, whatever, you know, know that each person has their own nuances, but you as a person, how are you showing up as that leader?

Because a manager is different than a leader. And when you dip into the micromanaging or the smothering of, and having to control every little aspect or have input, it devalues who they are.

It deflates their, their abilities. And their attitude and their energy. And it will actually cause more turnover, less production, more stagnant or bottlenecks in your company, in your production, in your outfit, which means less money, less happiness, less evolution of all of the above.

Absolutely. And I think it really also comes down to effective communication strategies because you really need to have that open communication with your team to the point where you are having regular challenges.

Thank you That you have these, these benchmarkers that they’re trying to make, but having regular check-ins to make sure work is going in the direction that you want it isn’t micromanaging, it’s keeping yourself to task, like you’re creating these benchmarkers that they’re going to need, and those regular check-ins ensure that you’re still aligned without micromanaging, and if you just make it, again, clear that you’re going to have these check-ins, that these are the benchmarkers, that this is what you’re, the path of, the progression of the project, whatever it might be, then it sets along this tone of like, okay, this is, this is what we have to have, and if you know you’re, you tend to be a bit of a obsessive-compulsive control freak, and I acknowledge that that has been me on more than one occasion, I might set up a few more benchmarkers or meetings until I can really fully trust that it’s going in the direction I want to, and if it’s pre-established, it comes off as less of micromanaging, as long as you keep yourself to task, but it can be a way to help, satiate that knee knee

For control without actually micromanaging every single step of the entire process. 100%. You’ve heard me say this a gajillion times.

Our team knows when I’m super spread thin, how I keep from micromanaging is I ask for more communication. I need more communication and to stay untasked.

And that is a big thing for me when I’m really spread thin. And so I communicate that to our team all the time.

I mean, I do it just like I’ve been spread really thin lately a lot, but like, that is my go to.

So I don’t because I know that as much as I’ve trained myself not to micromanage that I can easily get into that.

But that’s not like, it’s also doesn’t feel right anymore. Like it’s not a fiber that’s newer to me, where I think it’s a little bit more recent for you.

So I do want to talk about one other thing, though, too. And I just had a conversation a couple weeks ago with a really good friend, very successful.

And we were talking about the whole, do you want it done your way or you do you want it done?

What, what is more important to you, the process in which you’re doing stuff or the actual outcome? And we have this whole discussion and dialogue.

And I know we’ve talked about this a lot. We spoke about this a lot, not just with customers, but with each other.

And sometimes you need it to be done in the like process, follow one, follow two, follow three, but empowering.

And that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re micromanaging. That is setting the importance of, I need the process, the system to be done.

One, two, three. If you have suggestions, we can talk about outside of for those that maybe, if you want that autonomy, which autonomy is huge, by the way, we haven’t even talked about that, but if you want that autonomy or like creativeness from them to kind of roll.

But most of the time, most of the time it is that people want it done. They want it done.

And, um, either this way or better, right? Uh, never less this way or better. And so, um, this is a really interesting, um, kind of, and for those of you who are saying both, uh, then you’re a micromanager.

Like if that was your initial go-to, you’re a micromanager regardless, because it’s not both. You can pick, it’s almost never, right?

It’s almost never both. Now, literally, if it’s the, that you want it done your way or this way, uh, because there is also a difference between your way and this way, um, then, then maybe yes, the outcome might be a bit more, uh, like then you should expect more training because, you know, think about a great example of this is when I was doing bookkeeping for, uh, for one of my companies and I wanted to set up a very specific process.

of how it was done so that we could train a new bookkeeping team. And I wanted it done the same.

So that we could have it set because it was the books. And I was like, I was really nervous.

But I was setting up a process. And that’s the difference. Yes, it was my way. But it was after I had already talked with my original bookkeeper, she was leaving, I needed to set up a very specific process so that if there was a lag in between the new person that I would be able to take over, and it wouldn’t fall away and not get finished.

So we wouldn’t have an issue with our books not not lining up. So it was, it was my way.

But it was after it already established that this was the process we were going to do moving forward as a training method.

So it took longer for it to be that way, because I was training the next team to do it this way so that they could train the next team to do it that way so that we could have a smoother operation.

So that’s different, because I wasn’t, I didn’t want it done. I mean, did want it done, but I didn’t want it done quickly for the sake of it being done.

I wanted it to be done this specific way so that it would set up a system and a process.

So again, again, The different goal of what you’re trying to do. It’s not micromanaging. It’s setting up a different system, but there’s a different way that you’re approaching that from a training perspective.

Well, I’ll give you another, and I know you’ve heard this story. I’ll give you another more personal point on finances is that this was a struggle between my ex and I.

mean, I did all the things. I love him. We’re best friends. I did all the things. And then he also wanted me to manage the finances, which is not my strong suit.

I can make money all day, every day. But at that point, like I was really struggling with like looking at numbers, managing and doing different things, but he wanted me to do a very specific way.

And I had such resistance. I was like, let me do it my way. So that way I can still keep track.

If you want it done this way, then you do. And he would never take it over. And it caused a lot of issues, a lot of issues in our relationship because he needed it done this way.

And not that he was like, there were times where he was micromanaging about it, but because. Because of the energy that he put towards it, was very much setting the stage of that micromanagement kind of mindset, even though he left it to me to do, and it just, but this was where we had flexibility, as long as it was getting done, and you want me to do it, you’re not trying to, trying to help with this, so let me do it my way, it’s still going to be done, and then we can do checks and balances at the end of the month, and you learn my way since I’m doing it.

And I think that that’s really important. Yeah, it’s, which one are you more focused on, the process, or getting it done?

Because in the world of managing your employees, your people, or whatever, you know, having the benchmarkers, having the blueprints, having all of that SOPs is super important, but then also allowing them to have the autonomy and freedom to navigate things when when they can, versus always having them.

Follow one, two, three, and having this like really like antitrust, anti-empowerment almost environment, even though you’re saying great job, it’s this and that, but yet you’re squeezing them to death on the backside.

And that, again, will result in unhappy employees, lack of growth, stagnation, or even bottlenecking stagnation, not stagnation. It’s not worth it.

You’ve been listening long enough. I’m going to make up all the time. That’s true. Shakespeare did watch. I’m a Shakespeare of our time.

The poor Shakespeare’s rolling into the grave. I’m just kidding Shakespeare. Anywho, we crack ourselves up. do. Anywho, it is so important for you to just look at like the whole and how you’re able to be able to set them up for the best success.

Set yourself up for the best success and really let go of the reins where it needs to be. And if you have employees, if you have other people, like that’s the whole purpose of having a team is letting go of those reins.

It then becomes you overseeing or, yeah, overseeing or guiding those reins. Absolutely. And I just want to emphasize if you had done with every single workday and your biggest complaint is that you had to pull all the weight and you had to do all the things and that nobody was helping you and nobody was doing anything right.

And, you know, there’s only one of you and the team, there’s no loyalty to the team. There’s no connection with the team.

And there’s then there’s a high chance that there’s micromanaging happening there because if no managing or no managing, not giving over.

Yeah. Or no managing at all. And you’re just doing all the things and wondering why you’re so exhausted. Take a good look.

And, you know, I don’t want. I don’t To like burst your bubble. Actually, I do want to burst your bubble.

I have no problem bursting your bubble. But to let you know, you are the problem, but you’re also the solution.

So what a great place to be in that, yes, you might have all these problems, but they all have solutions.

And when it comes to micromanaging, it is so freeing. I say this because I absolutely was a micromanager. say it with knowledge that is way better on the other side.

And that when you can let go of some of that perfectionist expectation, unrealistic expectation, setting your team up to fail because you haven’t really set up any expectations or objectives, it will be so much more freeing on the other side of that when you can let go of all that control and see the results because of the effort, communication you put in, the clarity you put around their job, it is night and day difference in how you will be effective as a leader within your company, whatever that company may be.

All right. right. I think we’ve dropped enough knowledge bombs on you about how to manage a team without micromanaging.

And what that kind of looks like. So if this resonates with you, go ahead and hit the subscribe button, like, make a comment, let us know what stood out to you.

Also share this with the people in your world who really can use some knowledge around managing a team and not micromanaging.

Yeah, truth hurts, but we can do something about it. Make sure you are asking the questions, getting the answers you want here on the Pursuit of Badasserie.

Absolutely. Until next time, get after it.