Welcome to The Subtle Shift, a weekly newsletter where I share small but powerful ideas to help you lead with clarity, inspire change, and create a lasting impact. If someone forwarded this to you and you find it valuable, you can join the community here.
This Week’s Subtle Shift: Giving People Space
Leadership is full of paradoxes, but one of the most challenging is giving people space while staying on top of the details.
Where is the line between being supportive and being a micromanager? It’s not fixed. It’s relative, and others’ perceptions, not yours, determine it.
For one employee, asking a simple question might feel like micromanagement. For another, you’d need to shadow them all day for them to feel micromanaged. Unfortunately, as a leader, you don’t get to define whether you’re a micromanager—your team does.
The Spectrum of Support
Every leader has to dance along the spectrum of support. If you’re too distant and hands-off, people will say you are aloof, distant, inattentive, disengaged, unaccountable, or oblivious. No one likes a leader who seems like they don’t care or can’t be bothered. On the other hand, if you’re too involved, people will say you are controlling, judgmental, critical, nit-picky, hovering, or suffocating. This is the realm of micromanagement, and we don’t want to go there.
Outstanding leadership lives somewhere in the middle—in what I call the Goldilocks Zone—and striking this balance requires awareness, adaptability, and a willingness to let go of your own preferences to meet the needs of your team.
Checking Your Preferences
As a leader, your personal preferences—how you naturally operate and interact—can either help or hinder your ability to adapt to your team’s needs. By checking these preferences, you can better calibrate your approach and stay in the Goldilocks Zone. Here are four preferences to pay attention to:
- Your Comfort with Control – Are you naturally hands-on, or do you prefer to delegate and step back? Leaders who lean toward control may need to practice letting go, while those who prefer distance might need to lean in more than feels natural.
- Your Tolerance for Ambiguity – How do you feel about uncertainty? If you’re someone who craves structure and clarity, resist the urge to over-direct. Conversely, if you thrive in ambiguity, remember that some team members may need more guidance than you instinctively provide.
- Your Feedback Style – Do you tend to offer frequent, detailed feedback, or do you hold back until issues become significant? Frequent feedback can feel supportive to some and overbearing to others. Adjust your cadence based on what works for each individual.
- Your Focus on Process vs. Outcomes – Are you more concerned with how work gets done or the final result? Leaders who fixate on process might unintentionally micromanage, while those who only focus on outcomes might miss opportunities to provide needed support.
By reflecting on these preferences, you can catch yourself before drifting too far toward either extreme and make thoughtful adjustments to lead more effectively. Staying in the Goldilocks zone isn’t about being perfect—it’s about staying aware and intentional.
Finding The Balance
Great leaders know they must give people space while staying attentive to the details. Too much distance, and your team feels unsupported. Too much involvement, and they feel smothered.
Navigating this balance isn’t easy, but it’s essential, so this week, ask yourself:
- Are you giving your team the space to grow, or are you hovering too close?
- Are you staying close enough to the details to provide meaningful feedback, or have you stepped back too far?
Finding this balance is one of the most subtle—and powerful—shifts you can make as a leader.
Here’s to finding the right balance!
