Are you losing control of your team?

March 5, 2011

Your first problem may be that you are trying to control them in the first place!  While reading a few blogs related to startup employee retention this week, I came across an excellent post by Cliff Hurst which addresses what seems to be an increasing problem: employees who are over-managed and under-led.

If your company doesn’t address this problem, it will be devastating for your startup employee retention. According to Hurst, the issue stems from two generations of leaders taking to heart too much of the old adage, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” The “it” in this case should apply to processes, but not to people.

At expansion stage companies, every role is critical to their success. For this reason, managers feel increased pressure when it comes to each managed person’s success.Also, managers have their own responsibilities outside of management, and you could have a major issue if they are attempting to measure and control their reports.

In order to increase employee engagement, leaders need to manage processes and lead people.

According to Hurst, the job of a leader is to free their employees from constraints that keep them from doing a good job and to liberate them from burdensome controls and bureaucratic red tape that drain the energy out of their work.

A successful leader will paint a picture of where the company is going and then blaze the path to get there. This type of management style should make employees feel empowered, and take pride in putting their best efforts into their work. In order to be a more effective manager and to attract and maintain top talent… leaders need to encourage and allow their employees to do their best work.

Have you dealt with this issue in the past? If you have tips on how to overcome this growing issue, please share them below! Next on my reading list: Peter Drucker’s Management Challenges of the Twenty-First Century.

VP, Human Capital

<strong>Diana Martz</strong> is Vice President, Human Capital at<a href="http://www.ta.com/">TA Associates</a>. She was previously the Director of Talent at OpenView.