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As a manager it can be hard to let go of all the details. However, it is essential to make room for your employees to do their jobs—that is, to know the details and deliver assignments that are informed by those details—and to make room for you to do your job—to have a global grasp on department operations. If you consume yourself with details and responsibilities that are not yours, you’ll deplete your own energy by misallocating it to your employees’ assignments. You’ll also irritate your employees as they’re likely to feel that their intellect, decision making skills and ability to get things done is being questioned by you. Why would you hire a team of smart and capable people only to demean them? Would you want to work for someone who over-involves herself in your tasks?
Beyond this micromanaging behavior of being too involved in your employees’ work, some managers find their perfectionist tendencies (ironically the trait that helped propel our careers—or so we think!) manifesting in damaging ways. Doing your employees’ work over, after they’ve submitted it, is an inappropriate use of your time. Now, if your employees are brand new or their performance is struggling, that’s a different story—and I would argue that doing their work over is still not the best practice but that’s a whole other post. For employees who are good at their jobs, you must learn to trust them, their judgments and their integrity. That trust takes time to develop but once it’s there, you can accept the good work that they produce instead of doing it over in your style.