Leman Tech Leadership Podcast · 2026-06-30 · 16 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
26 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
This solo episode tackles a common struggle for newly promoted tech leaders: the urge to constantly check on team members and redo their work. Leaminska argues that micromanagement typically stems not from genuine trust deficits but from a contracting gap - misalignment on scope, success criteria, decision-making authority, and ways of working. He emphasizes that explicit, written professional contracts prevent assumptions and reduce the anxiety driving constant check-ins. Beyond contracting, Leaminska introduces a critical self-awareness component: leaders experiencing persistent perfectionism and control urges should examine their own physiological needs (sleep, hydration, nutrition) and psychological needs (time structure, recognition). Drawing on transactional analysis and communication frameworks, he positions micromanagement as distress behavior rather than a team performance problem. The episode targets newly promoted experts who struggle delegating their former domain, offering immediate tactical steps: protect calendar time, cover basic needs, have explicit recontracting conversations, and shift from an "I'm okay, you're not okay" mindset to genuine "I'm okay, you're okay" collaboration.
It's typically a contracting gap - misalignment on what 'good work' means, scope, success criteria, and decision-making authority. When these aren't explicitly discussed and documented, leaders operate from unspoken expectations and constant anxiety, leading to checking behavior. This is compounded by the leader's own stress and unmet needs rather than genuine team performance issues.
Acknowledge that your speed and perfection reflect your years of experience, but your job as a leader is to develop your team to do it better and faster than you ever did. Your team has access to newer technology and tools you didn't have when learning; redoing their work prevents learning and traps you in an inefficient cycle.
Start with yourself: assess your physiological needs (sleep, hydration, nutrition) and psychological needs (time structure, recognition). Most micromanagement urges stem from the leader's stress and unmet needs, not team incompetence. Once you address these, you'll have the clarity to have proper contracting conversations with your team.
Scope of work, criteria of success, decision-making authority levels, KPIs, ways of working, and team communication norms. This should be written down, not just discussed, so both parties have a reference point and assumptions don't drive constant check-ins.
Because you likely communicated expectations in your own head or in passing, without explicit out-loud alignment. Moving from "I'm okay, you're not okay" distress communication to genuine "I'm okay, you're okay" collaboration requires written contracts and repeated, patient recontracting conversations rather than assuming senior engineers should inherently know.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode offers some substantive frameworks (contracting, physiological needs, Transactional Analysis's 'I'm OK, You're OK') that would resonate with stressed managers, but much of the content is repetitive throat-clearing and abstract advice rather than novel, actionable claims. The core insight - that micromanagement stems from misalignment and unmet personal needs rather than trust - is valuable but underdeveloped, and the episode spends considerable time on motivational framing and self-help platitudes.
it is not about the trust issue. it is more about the alignment and contracting issue. That is a really really really important sometimes the most important root cause of this thought.
So if you have this urge to check on people, to start doing things for them, I would say that you check on your own distress because if you go there most of the time it is it is about making sure that everything is perfect.
While the psychological framework linking leader distress to micromanagement is somewhat fresh, the broader advice (write things down, align expectations, take care of yourself) is standard management wisdom. The Transactional Analysis reference and contracting language feel borrowed from established organizational psychology rather than original thinking. No counterintuitive or first-principles arguments are presented.
The contracting part is extremely important part of everything that we are doing.
You have control over it. And most importantly, don't get people outside of yourself to get control over your calendar and over your time.
This is a solo episode with no guest. The host claims credentials as 'former violinist turned management engineer, turned organizational psychologist,' but provides no evidence of operating at scale or building teams in a B2B context. The transcript includes no examples of actual leadership work or teams managed.
My name is Alexander Leaminska. I'm a former violinist turned management engineer, turned organizational psychologist, speaker and PCM leadership mentor and facilitator.
The episode is almost entirely devoid of named examples, metrics, timelines, or concrete data. References to 'Steve Jobs' and vague allusions to unspecified team situations provide minimal substance. No case studies, client examples, or measurable outcomes are given to ground the advice.
This is what Steve Jobs always always say. I want for my team to be better than I am.
I know a dozens of them.
As a solo Q&A episode, there is no back-and-forth conversation, no challenging questions, and no productive disagreement. The monologue is self-directed and allows no space for the host to test or push ideas through dialogue. This format fundamentally prevents the demonstration of conversational craft.
Okay, so let's go and take some action. Hi everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Lemon Tech Leadership Podcast.
So this is this question, and you know what, because it was such a big question, and I went into some other areas of contracting and time process communication model in this stress and they needs. So you know what, I am going to stay with only with the one question for today.
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
▶︎ #173 | Tech Leadership Q&A: How Do I Get My Team to Just Do Their Job Without Checking on Them Constantly? In this solo episode of the Leman Tech Leadership Podcast, host Aleksandra Lemańska continues her Q&A series with one of the most common struggles tech leaders bring to her: "How do I get this person to do their job without checking on them constantly - and how do I trust that it will be done as well as I would do it myself?" Alex traces this straight back to contracting, specifically the contracting gap at the professional level. When scope, success criteria, decision-making authority, and ways of working were never explicitly discussed and agreed on, leaders are left guessing whether "good work" in their head matches "good work" in their team member's head. That gap, not a lack of trust, is usually the real root cause behind the urge to micromanage. Alex’s concrete challenge for listeners is to check their own needs first, then schedule a recontracting conversation with at least one team member this week. If this question is one you - or someone you know - keeps asking, share the episode with them.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Lemon Tech Leadership Podcast. My name is Alexander Leaminska. I'm a former violinist turned management engineer, turned organizational psychologist, speaker and PCM leadership mentor and facilitator. In this space, everyone is invited to the table where we have real, eye opening conversations about tech leadership. Two keywords utility and real life implementation. Knowledge tools, frameworks, ways of working, dos and don'ts. Taking from my personal experiences as a leader in the experiences of others is what you are going to get from every single episode. This is the Lemon Tech Leadership Podcast. Okay, so let's go and take some action. Hi everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Lemon Tech Leadership Podcast. Today, I promised you another question that I have from you, and I'm going to deliver the promise. So the last episode, solo episode, was about the first two questions from my list of Q and A that I get a lot from the conversations that I have with all of the tech leaders I cooperate with, I listened to all around the group. So today I'm going to go with another two or three. We are going to see how the episode will work. So the question that is happening a lot is about work delivered by the team members, not by yourself as a leader. So the question is how do I get this person to do their job without checking on them constantly? And I would I would add another one small piece of the subject here, how do I trust that the job is going to deliver it as well as I would deliver it. H this is it And this is tough, especially when you were the expert of the area and then you were promoted to be a team leader of your team or a manager of your team that actually know how to do their job. Because if the situation is like you are not an expert in area and their area, and then you'll lead them. This is easy because you don't have an urge to do micromanagement or nano management even because you don't know how to do the task. And this is great. So you're focusing on everything around and this is your job, not just going and doing the thing. And I would say that most of the time it is about the contracting gap at the professional level. And if you didn't have a chance to listen to the episode about contracting, I would go and do it because there is one great episode about contracting, and I think I'm going to do one more because it is a part of the book as well. The contracting part is extremely important part of everything that we are doing. And the two is amazing. This is so powerful and it resolves many different things, complex misunderstandings, wasted time, complex emails or slag retives, messages that you exchange without any or very small success whatsoever. So regardless, go check out the episode with contracting. It is there on the channel. So the professional level of contracting is about the scope of the drop, scope of the work, criteria of success, opportunities to have more decision making spots or higher level of decision making when you're growing your role or between the roles, or all the things that are connected with why people are delivering good work because they know what to do, they know what they're responsible for, they know to what point they make decisions, and they know what the KPIs look like, the criteria of success, the ways of working they have we have here in the team, how we communicate as a team, and so on and so forth, So we make sure we don't assume we just talk about it, and we make one place to actually have it for the future where every single piece of contract is unwritten, not only said between us, but actually written in some place. So I was thinking about contracting a contracting gap between good work in your brain and good work in their brain, because if we never define what good work means for both of us and we don't get it aligned, you are going to be out of your mind when it comes to the making sure. I'm not saying that making sure is possible. I'm saying that you can actually becomer and calm down the edge, the edge of constant check or micromanagement. And it's sometimes it is not about the trust issue. It is more about the alignment and contracting issue. That is a really really really important sometimes the most important rootcus of this thought. So contracting not assuming checking on how they understand. I think with what you have in your brain, and this is the answer, and this is the you're contracting. So I will add another thing to this one, because we talk a lot in the show and doing the workshops and the other processes about being okay, okay. So I'm okay, You're okay, I'm doing the best, You're doing the best, and we are just figuring out everything in the middle together. Out loud, not in our brains. Not we are assuming that something is obvious or you should know something because you're a senior or a staff engineer or something. We actually align out loud. In frosts. Communication model asks the second layer on the story of the question, how do I get this person to do their job without checking on them constantly? Checking on them constantly is not our behavior out of okay okay zone. It is distress. So if you have this urge to check on people, to start doing things for them, I would say that you check on your own distress because if you go there most of the time it is it is about making sure that everything is perfect. And of course, if you've done something for years, you are going to be more perfect than others. But this is not the case. If you are going to do things for them, they will never learn and you are in efficious cycle that you were turning around again and again. Not your people. This is not about them. This is about you, ugly truth. But there's a solution for that. So if you have the spot, I will do it better than there than them. I'm going to it faster than them. Of course you will. But this is not the point. The point is to make them doing it better and faster than you ever did, especially right now with technology, with AI, with everything that is happening. When you learned, there wasn't that kind of tech stock that they have available today. So imagine what they can do right now. They can be better than you and you know what, This is great. This is what steep Jobs always always say. I want for my team to be better than I am. That's why I hire them. I don't want to be the most the smartest person in the room because it's exhausting and there's no innovation in it. So check your distress, check your level of first of all needs that you have from your body, so the needs covered or I am well fed, I ate well. I well means healthy food, cutting sugar, getting ultra processed foods. Do am I hydrated water? Okay? There? I get enough sleep last night? Do I get up and get up and go to bed approximately at the same time every single day, including the weekends. Do I use bathroom on a regular basis and not waiting until the break is and between the meetings because I need to piece so badly that I cannot focus. So check out on your physiological needs first. Fed them, cover them. Then check out the psychological motivational needs. There's the whole episode about them moltipational needs to check it out. But if you go into this perfectionism mode or I want to or I need to do everything on my own, or stupid people that I cannot trust them because they never deliver and said the way that I would, most likely you have too frustrated needs. The first one is time structure or space structure. So you have have a mess in your calendar, in your in your planning, in your checklists, deliveries them, so work on that. Make some structure, protect your time. Be an owner for calendar, not the other way around. Don't let your calendar guide you or have control over you. You have control over over it. And most importantly, don't get people outside of yourself to get control over your calendar and over your time. Send bunjuries contract well from okay, okay, not from distress, but put some structure around here the next hour you have and you'll see the difference. No notifications, just take one, two, three things that you want to take care of. Block your calendar, turn notifications off and start just start focus and start working. You'll see the difference. And the second the second hit is the recognition of efficient work. So ask yourself, when was the last time that I was recognized and seen by something that you actually delivered at your job or at home. It can be also a home something that you delivered efficiently. So it may be a KPI achieved, it made me a goal achieved. It may be a delivered piece of something by your team. And this it was your job as well, so the team is efficient and effective. Maybe it was about doing a great job for your spouse and sure he said, hey, honey, thank you for doing that for me. Thanks to you, I was I was able to finish something or you take that you have taken care of the laundry or the car, or the kids, or food or anything, and thank you for that. It was a little way. It is okay, well, well for what you do, this is this is this is important. So check on yourself first, go back to okay, okay, and then come back to the contracting part. What actually every single person in your team should do in their job, in their work, no assumptions. If you never had a conversation, do it. It is always a good time to have the recontracting conversation. So this is this question, and you know what, because it was such a big question, and I went into some other areas of contracting and time process communication model in this stress and they needs. So you know what, I am going to stay with only with the one question for today. I think that these episode is full enough for you to make some next steps. So what I would advise for you to do is just said. First of all, check your needs. Check yourself. Go back to the episode about the needs. Just check check on yourself, check on what you need at the moment the most, and see if your needs are covered. Physiological needs are the same for every single person on the planet, and they are not different. But then multivation you needs are different depends on where you're in the in the structural of your personality and what is the most important for you right now in this phase of your life you have. So check on yourself, do plan one two things that you can do to make yourself happy with those, and see how your life and the work shifting. I promise you it is going to be a huge difference between both. So thank you for today. If you know somebody who has this thought in their brain, hey, I need to do everything on my own. I cannot trust anybody or the stupid people. They don't listen to what I say to them, and then they ask me the same question five times and they come back with us saying, I'm sure that you know at least one I know a dozens of them. I promise you to show the episode with them because this can be life changing and the real game changer in their work and life. So chard Aline shut away. This is how we learn together, and I promise to get back to those questions because I have a bunch more of them. So they'll just stay tuned for the next week and we are going to cover more questions from that. Take clear, list the questions that you have in your brain, but sometimes you're not saying them out loud, or you talk about them, but you don't have a good solution. So hey, this is it. This is me. Thank you for listening. I appreciate you all, and I'm going to see you very soon. In the next episode of Lemon Tech Leadership Podcast. Bye everybody. Lehman Tech Leadership Podcast
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