Freedom Friday: Overcoming Micromanagement

Transcript

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Hello everybody and welcome once again to the unlearned podcast.

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I am your host, ruth Abigail, aka RA, and this is Freedom Friday, where me or a friend of mine come and share something we've unlearned recently and how it has made us just a little bit more free, all right.

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So holiday season's coming up and you know, anybody who's listening to this show naturally is interested in growth, right?

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You're interested in unlearning so that you can experience more freedom, so you can grow, so you can do something, live a different way in your life.

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That's who you are.

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If this podcast interests you at all, then that's probably true about you, which means it's also probably true that you get called upon for a lot of things, because anybody who's interested in growth is probably not just Because anybody who's interested in growth is probably not just.

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It's not something that you're not the only person who knows that you are growing, right?

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Growth a lot of times is evident, and so if you're constantly growing, it looks as though you're progressing, it looks as though you're productive, it looks as though you are a person who is interested in doing better and being better, and those types of people are very attractive, especially when it comes to seeing new leaders, right.

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Who can we tap for the next thing?

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So you're also probably that person who is not just a leader somewhere, maybe in the workplace, but you also take lead roles in your family.

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You also take lead roles in your uh in in, at your church.

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If you go to church, you take lead roles in your community and that could be from anything, right.

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That could be leading a team to leading an organization, to leading a child right as a parent, so like you.

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But you're interested in getting better and growing, which also probably means that when you do things, you want them done right.

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Yeah, I know you want them done right, right, like.

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It means that you probably want them done right, which also probably means that in the midst of you wanting things done right, you might be a little bit of a micromanager.

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I know, I know that's not.

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You don't think you are, that's okay.

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I didn't think I was either.

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You don't think you're a micromanager.

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You're like no, no, no, no, no, no.

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I totally trust people.

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I totally want them to.

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I want to work around the best people, like I want the best people around me, and that's probably true.

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And because you're so committed to the thing being right, to growing to progressing, then you are very, very particular about certain things.

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So you might not think you're a micromanager.

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You might not think you are a uh what do they call?

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A helicopter parent, right?

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You might not think that.

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You might not think, uh, that you are someone who takes over pretty easily.

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You might not think that, but I'm here to tell you you probably are, and that's okay, that's all right, but you probably are that person.

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I definitely have been that person.

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I hate to admit it, because I don't really like micromanaging.

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I certainly don't like being micromanaged, but I don't really like micromanaging.

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I don't really want to.

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I'm not really that interested.

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I want people to do what they do.

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I want to be a part of a team where we're all like playing at high levels and we're doing our thing.

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But the reality is sometimes my desire for perfection or desire for progress can get in the way of other people being excellent too, and so what happens sometimes is you feel the need to direct other people who also have the same commitment to growth that you do, or maybe they don't, but they are on in their own process.

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Uh, this, this is really a a scene, a lot with children, right?

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So, uh, we have a nine-year-old and I find myself he's a very mature nine-year-old, he can do a lot of things independently and wants to do those, and I can easily find myself being like no, no, no, do it this way.

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No, no, no, do it that way.

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And it's like sometimes I have to say, ruth, abigail, pull back, because he's learning and he's doing it the way he can do it.

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There's nothing wrong with how he's doing it.

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It's not the way you would do it, but let him learn through it, right?

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I have to tell myself that all the time because my propensity is to say, no, this is the better way, let me help you do this.

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Let me help you do that.

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We also see this a lot at work.

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I know you're not the micromanager at work.

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Somebody else is micromanaging you, right, maybe, probably.

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But let's just say, for the sake of argument, that you might be a micromanager.

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You might want to be so helpful that you end up stepping up, stepping on other people, right.

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And so sometimes we get so enthusiastic about progress that we believe we're the only people who can do the progressing and it discourages others around us from growing.

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We don't want our growth and our desire for progress to discourage other people's growth and their desire for progress.

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So how can I do that?

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How can I unlearn micromanaging, if that is indeed something that I struggle with, or if you know somebody maybe it's not you, it's not you, maybe it's not you, maybe you know someone who is micromanaging.

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So one of the first things is you really want to understand.

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It's really two things that I think could be really helpful.

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First, you have to let people plant the seed.

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You don't always have to be the planter of the seed.

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In other words, it doesn't always have to be you that initiates the growth.

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Let other people do that and you be a supporter.

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Right, help to water that, but they plant the seed.

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Let them be the planter and you simply help them to water.

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If you've ever planted a garden, the first step is planting the seed.

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Without the seed, nothing grows right, and so you have to plant the seed.

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You have to do it in a way where it's you know you can't just throw it.

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You have to actually go out there and move the dirt around and put the seeds in a particular place that you want the plant to grow, and then you have to be consistent in watering it, and watering.

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It is just a matter of going out and tending to it, right and but?

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But the the what the seed is, where you plant it, how you plant it is all done by the planter.

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Anybody can go and water.

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You don't even have to know what the seed is to water, you can just water.

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So instead of instead of instead of being the planter, instead of insisting on controlling where the seed is, how it's put and all that you know all of that be content with just watering the seeds once they're planted and watching it grow in other people, and that'll help, right?

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That's one way we can unlearn micromanaging and stop planting and be a waterer.

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And then the second thing micromanaging and stop planting and be a waterer.

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And then the second thing, and the last thing really is, we have to know that when you're micromanaging, there's a problem.

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You have a trust problem.

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I have been in that and I've been there right.

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Whenever I find myself needing to take control over something, I realize it's because I don't trust whoever else is in the picture, whether that is a team member, whether that's a family member, whether that's my husband, whether that's the kid, whether that's anyone, whether it's a friend who's trying to do something different in their life and they've asked me to help and now I'm being a little too helpful and it's like yo, like hold on, I got this, you know, but in the back of my mind I don't trust that they do, and that's why I get so close to it.

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And so there's you cannot build a healthy environment without trust, and so one of the things it's not something, it's not, it's not something that is, I think, readily connected micromanaging and not being trusting.

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But it's right there, it's directly connected.

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When you feel the need to control and put your hands on things and watch people do everything that they're doing, you don't trust them and that's not going to foster healthy relationships, it's not going to foster healthy environment.

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You have to allow people to do what they do, how they do it, without your input on everything.

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I know that can be hard, again, because you are a type of person who is productive, you want to grow, you're ready to move, you're ready to progress right, and that can sometimes turn into somebody who's overly controlling, who's a micromanager, to somebody who's overly controlling, who's a micromanager, who is now more obsessed with the way people are doing things as opposed to whether or not they're actually doing them, and so we got to unlearn that.

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I have to unlearn it too.

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It is something that I'm constantly.

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It's constantly in my head, and I've never considered myself to be that, but I've realized there have been moments and seasons in my life where I've had low trust and therefore I feel like I had to have more control.

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And that's not freedom.

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You can't be free that way.

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You can't.

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You yourself cannot continue to progress while worrying about how other people are doing, because you don't quite trust that they know what's best for them.

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So let's unlearn that y'all.

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Let's unlearn that together.

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Let's unlearn micromanaging.

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All right bet, that's it.

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That is Freedom Friday for this week.

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Let's keep unlearning together so that we can experience more freedom, and we will see y'all next week.

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Peace.

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Thank you once again for listening to the unlearned podcast.

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We would love to hear your comments and your feedback about the episode.

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Feel free to follow us on facebook and instagram and to let us know what you think.

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We're looking forward to the next time, when we are able to unlearn together to move forward towards freedom.

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See you then.

Freedom Friday: Overcoming Micromanagement

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