***Inspect What You Expect: Your Key to Achieving Outrageous Results

By Regina Barr

See all Articles by Regina BarrSee Regina Barr's Expert PageGet Updates on Career DevelopmentGet Updates on Regina Barr

Your leadership success is the direct result of your ability to motivate and inspire people to get things done – whether they report to you or not. Most of you understand the importance of empowering your team to make decisions. You’ve probably even gotten comfortable delegating tasks. Now you need to focus on inspecting what you expect. Why? This is the key to ensuring that you and your team achieve your organizations results.

The challenge here is to check in with those whom you are leading in a way that does not make your staff, team members or colleagues feel like you are micro-managing them. Easier said then
done, right?

Follow these simple rules and you’ll be well on your way to getting more results without appearing to hover over anyone.

1. Be clear on the deliverables but flexible on means. I tell clients that structure can be liberating. This means that we work to put together the framework for how we will get the work accomplished. Then within that framework it, is up to each of us individually to determine how we will go about completing day-to-day tasks.

2. Determine key milestones and check-ins at the outset. This will help make it clear at the front-end what you consider to be most important. Scheduling check-ins early on will help you stay up-to-date on work in progress and allows you to ask questions and become familiar with the details along the way.

3. Be available for input and support. By making yourself available throughout the project or assignment, you create opportunities to build and grow your relationships. This also helps to show that you are interested in the success of the project and more importantly, the success of that individual.

Certain situations may warrant some level of micro-management – when an employee is just learning the ropes or when performance has become an issue. In these cases, it always helps to be up-front about the reasons for your closer supervision. While it may not alleviate tension, it does go a long way to helping others understand your focused involvement.