While successful employees indeed create well-performing teams, a range of factors can impact the success part.
However, one thing stands out and is common to most high-performing workers — they are all entrusted with a great deal of autonomy.
So, what does this mean from a leader’s perspective? How do you nurture autonomy in the workplace while maintaining transparency and supervision over tasks and projects?
Here are the answers you’re seeking.
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What does autonomy mean in the workplace?
Workplace autonomy means the freedom to make decisions and take ownership of your work. It can involve flexibility in what, how much, when, where, and with whom you work.
However, managers often struggle to balance fostering autonomy with maintaining control.
In fact, while trying to maintain visibility into tasks, they often fall into micromanaging, constantly checking in on people for updates.
Why is autonomy important in the workplace?
A Gartner survey found that employees who are allowed to decide when they work are 2.3 times more likely to achieve higher performance than those without autonomy.
So, it’s no wonder why many leaders strive to create a culture of trust and maintain the atmosphere of an autonomous work environment.
In addition to higher performance, autonomy in the workplace comes with several other benefits, including:
- Better task ownership,
- Increased accountability,
- Clearer insight into project progress,
- Lower need for supervision,
- Boosted employee motivation,
- More realistic project schedules, and much more.
Top 4 leader-backed tips for encouraging employee autonomy
Here are several first-hand tips on how to foster autonomy at work:
1. Give employees the freedom to choose their own tasks
Our contributor, Alex Ugarte, the Operations Manager of London Office Space, shares a way to foster autonomy within the team:
“One example of our culture of autonomy is our project management system. We give team members more autonomy to choose their projects and set their timelines, as long as they align with overall company goals and current areas of need. This approach has led to increased motivation and people taking more ownership of tasks.”
As you can see, leveraging project management software gets you at least one step closer to creating an autonomous work environment. Employees essentially get more freedom to work independently while managers still have constant insight into each team member’s activities.
2. Encourage decision-making
Have you ever found that employees constantly turn to you for every decision they need to make? Suddenly, you became the go-to person for every question or uncertainty!
This is a common experience for many leaders. But the key is to recognize when to step back.
Even when you know the answer, sometimes it’s better to let employees find it on their own. After all, this helps them grow and become more autonomous.
Sr. Director of Comms & Creative at Omnisend, Bernard Meyer, explains what managers can do to improve employee autonomy within their organizations:
“It’s natural for a manager to want to be decisive and make a choice, especially when the manager believes that’s the best path forward. But this isn’t really the role of a manager. You have to delegate decision-making to your teams, and guide them to make better, clearer decisions over time that benefit the entire organization.”
Meyer continues:
“So one way to do this is to not make a decision (which isn’t urgent). Don’t step in. Don’t take action. Don’t answer the question. Simply ask what they would do in this situation, what their opinion is, why, and what that means for the rest of the team or organization. The more often you do that, the more you build their muscle for resolving their own issues and becoming more autonomous.”
💡 PLAKY PRO TIP
Task delegation essentially means you’re giving your employees a certain level of decision-making authority. Learn how to delegate tasks (the right way) in the post below:
3. Provide support when needed
Though knowing when to step back is important, it’s equally vital to know when to provide necessary support to your team.
A business management expert and president of dr-squared Consultants, Dr. Diane Rosen, explains how support plays a major part in being a good leader:
“Fostering autonomy does not mean disappearing as a team leader. On the contrary, the most effective way to foster autonomy is to consider it as having two parts — autonomy and support…The support portion of the equation means that the supervisor doesn’t just back off but rather checks in, makes sure the person has clear instructions and parameters and access to necessary resources.”
Dr. Rosen continues:
“A pitfall of too much autonomy is sending an employee off to do something who doesn’t understand the assignment, is missing requisite knowledge or background, and who does not feel comfortable asking questions. The leader must reinforce that asking questions is rewarded!”
4. Embrace accountability
Work autonomy, however, should not be pursued at the expense of company rules and regulations.
Employees should still adhere to company standards. So, as a leader, it’s up to you to find the right balance between working behind the scenes and staying informed of the project’s ongoing work.
Meyer explains how you can deal with a common problem many leaders face:
“The obstacle is generally being too focused on autonomy, and not being in the details anymore…We require that everything is added to a project management tool and tasks are up-to-date. That way, I can independently go into the details and check the status of anything, without bothering the person or seeming to micromanage.”
Reliable task management software like Plaky allows for just that. Once all the tasks have been added, the manager can easily check any task status at a glance on their own and react only when necessary.
Looking for a tool to help you foster autonomy within the team? Go for Plaky
Being a leader is a lot about striking the right balance between giving employees too much freedom and not losing track of the project’s work.
That said, leadership is also about balancing between fostering autonomy and holding employees accountable for their tasks.
To avoid falling into the trap of micromanaging, as a leader, you should nurture transparency. This means being open about what’s expected of each employee, when, and at what quality level.
Luckily, you don’t need to fear losing insight into what everybody is working on or worry that you’ll endanger the project if something important slips away — not when you can keep track of everything in project management tools like Plaky.
With Plaky, you’ll have access to each and every task and piece of information anytime — day or night. So, you (or any other night owl on your team) can stay in the loop with task progress long after a task owner’s working hours have passed.
To enhance transparency even further, you can remind team members of approaching deadlines in quite a sophisticated way with Plaky. Using conditional coloring, Plaky can automatically color tasks when they’re nearing their due dates.
In addition, with Plaky’s activity log feature, you can check who is active without being intrusive.
There are 3 types of activity logs in Plaky — meaning 3 subtle ways to track a project’s progress, including:
- Board activity log — see all past activities, from status changes and updates to comments and new assignees,
- Item activity log — track all task updates, and
- Last seen — see the name and time when each team member was last seen on the project board. This way, you can clearly tell who uses the board (and how often!) to keep up with the team’s activities.
Essentially, with Plaky’s activity logs, you’ll have detailed updates on everything that happens, and may rest assured everyone is on track and work is progressing smoothly.
And yes, you’ll also maintain autonomy within the team while being up-to-date — and without the fear of micromanaging!
Start fostering autonomy and leading your team with transparency. Sign up for Plaky right now!
Need more? Try CAKE.com’s Productivity Bundle and get 3 essential work tools for the price of 1:
- A powerful time tracker — Clockify,
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- An easy-to-use project management tool — Plaky.
