Over-trust vs Micro-management

I read Jack Welch’s autobiography when I was 21 years old. I’m turning 41 this week and was thinking this morning about the many insights from that book that stayed with me these two decades.

Nutron Jack knew when to get stuck into the detail and when to back off. Being able to “deep-dive” as he put it, is a valuable skill. But I’ve yet to meet a truly great leader whose default style is micro-management.

Berkshire Hathaway over-trust the people who lead their divisions and businesses. And so far that’s worked out reasonably well for them.

Charlie Munger says it’s because they put effort into selecting people who should be over-trusted.

That’s an interesting and challenging idea. It resonates with me personally, but how many leaders of leaders are willing to over-trust their people?

Just this week I saw Nickolas Means talk about this. He’s the Engineering Manager for Code Security at GitHub.

“The most important thing I know about leading engineering teams is this: Hire good people, do your best to take care of them, and stay out of their way so they can do amazing things.”

Autonomy is not a problem to be solved but a tension to be managed. Great leaders manage this tension by hiring and developing the kind of teams worthy of over-trust.

Invest. Trust. Rinse and Repeat.