The Day I Chose Not to Micromanage

January 25, 2026 by Mike Manazir – (4-5 minutes)

Why Taking Control Can Actually Make Leaders Weaker

One of my core beliefs as a commanding officer was simple: the ship is not about the Captain—it’s about the team.

I wanted my bridge team to be highly trained. That meant resisting the temptation to always give the orders myself. If I was constantly countermanding decisions or taking control, my officers wouldn’t learn the weight of responsibility. They wouldn’t feel consequences. And they wouldn’t grow.

On a carrier, when you’re driving the ship, you issue conning orders to two people. The Helmsman controls the rudder. The Lee Helmsman controls speed through the engine order telegraph, which sends signals to the nuclear reactor control rooms. Orders are precise and formal.

“Left ten degrees rudder, steady on course one two five. All engines ahead one-third, indicate zero three zero RPM for ten knots.” Every order is read back verbatim. Formality matters. Precision matters. In critical moments, ambiguity can be disastrous.

The Conning Officer—the person actually verbalizing those orders—is usually a junior officer in training to become an Officer of the Deck. We deliberately put the best ones in high-risk, high-impact situations: restricted waters, underway replenishment, tight harbor transits. That’s where real learning happens.

Let Them Practice

Training only works if people are allowed to struggle. If I constantly told a Conning Officer exactly what to do—left, right, more speed, less speed—they’d never see the effects of their decisions. So instead, I let the Officer of the Deck train them, then allowed the conning team to drive the ship under my watchful eye.

I had clear standards. I also had invisible boundaries. Based on my experience, I knew where the ship needed to be and how far I was willing to let it drift. I created limits for them inside my own. They couldn’t see those boundaries—but I could. Their job was to keep the ship on track as precisely as they could.

There’s a hidden danger in micromanagement. If a leader steps in, fixes the problem, and then hands control back, the team loses context. They don’t know what to do next. That confusion is more dangerous than a small mistake. Some captains constantly took the ship back. I chose a different approach.

This mattered even more during underway replenishment, where two massive ships steam side by side – nominally 130 feet from each other — close enough to pass fuel and supplies over tensioned rigs. Too close risks collision. Too far risks damaging the rigs. Watching someone in training meander inside those limits would put my heart in my throat sometimes, but the discipline to not take the ship from them helped me as a leader, as well. They learned through seeing their mistakes materialize into deviations and I learned their capabilities.

Training Beyond the Bridge

One of the best training environments on Nimitz was the San Diego channel. I knew the waters. I knew the hazards. Harbor pilots came aboard to help. The best pilots guided the young officers without micromanaging—sharing small insights only experience teaches.

Early on, it wasn’t pretty. They overshot turns. They undercorrected. They added too much power. Then not enough. Their track lines through the channel were ugly. I let them meander. If things drifted too far, I’d offer guidance—not control. “A little more rudder.” “You’re a bit fast.” I almost never took the ship away from them.

Afterward, I’d debrief. “Did you see what happened there?” “What caused that overshoot?” “What would you do differently next time?” That’s where learning stuck.

Leadership Lesson: Don’t Micromanage

Developing leaders requires intent. You must trust that your people are capable—because if they aren’t, you have a screening and training problem. Identify key roles that reveal leadership potential. Set clear targets. Define boundaries. Give guidance. Then step back.

Make their target ring bigger than yours. Let them succeed inside it. If they miss, coach—don’t commandeer. Over time, tighten the target. Increase difficulty. Their confidence grows because they did it—not you.

When people succeed on their own, their self-esteem rises. When leaders micromanage, all the credit flows upward and learning stalls.

This applies directly to business. If a leader makes decisions without explaining intent, the team is left guessing. That guessing creates hesitation, misalignment, and drift. The ideal isn’t leadership by committee—it’s leadership with clarity.

Here’s the secret:
If you don’t assume you’re the smartest person in the room, you’ll learn from your team.
And when someone consistently hits your mark, take notice. That’s how you build your bench.

Explore Leadership Resources:

P.S.

If this message stirred something in you—share it. Forward it to a friend, colleague, or your leadership team. Better yet—let’s talk.

Let’s raise up a generation of leaders who know how to Lead to Win.

Mike Manazir
Bestselling Author | Navy Admiral | Fighter Pilot | Leadership Coach

Take Action

Mike’s Leadership Forum

Do you have a comment or question to make on today’s blog?
Do you have a leadership issue you would like us to process in a future blog?
Do you need a speaker for an upcoming leadership event?
Click CONTACT for comments.