Comment by port11
19 days ago
I went from CTO to unemployed to stay-at-home dad. It taught me something about myself as a manager: I wasn’t trying to micro-manage and was pretty hands-off, but I always had a small voice in my head saying I could do things better myself.
Sadly, that meant I didn’t delegate enough, even if I let the team work on their own stuff. I’ve the same problem with the baby, I wanna do everything myself because of that stupid voice.
Reframed as “I’m just the better parent”, it sounds awful. Or “I’m just a better employee”. Maybe the micromanager (or the non-delegating manager) just can’t let go of that voice, that feeling. I’ll try to do better at the next job.
Another reframing that might help:
“Doing X is only part of the task. Getting baby/junior/employee to do X as independently as possible is also a critical requirement.”
This framing doesn’t allow you to think you’d do a better job because then the task is incomplete.
This is wonderful, thank you. It’s true that as a parent that comes more easily, most of my job is to help him mature into an independent and self-reliant person. Good reframing.