I love gardening and growing fresh vegetables. Recently I had checked in on my Brussels sprouts seedlings and, well, they looked awful! The reason quickly became obvious to me: I had overwatered them.

I was so excited about growing Brussels sprouts this year, I didn’t want anything to happen to the seedlings. So I tended to micromanage and overwater them.

It didn’t help.

I think the same is true when we try to micromanage our team members. Sometimes we have the best intentions. We want to help them grow. We want to support them. But micromanaging actually hinders their growth instead of promoting it. For example, when you overwater a plant, you stifle or limit the amount of oxygen available to the roots so they can’t develop effectively to anchor the plant well. The same is true when you are overly involved with team members. Giving them too much information or too much guidance means they don’t learn how to figure things out on their own.

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