Skip Navigation‘Grey’s Anatomy’ creator Shonda Rhimes.Michael Buckner | Variety | Getty Images
Shonda Rhimes wasn’t immune to some common career mistakes when she was just starting out.
Rhimes, the founder of production company Shondaland and creator of TV shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal,” spoke about once being a micromanager and “a pain in the butt” at Indeed’s FutureWorks HR conference in Phoenix on Sept. 3.
“I was that high-performing individual who was a pain in the butt for everybody else, and it wasn’t great,” she said. “You can be amazing, but if you can’t work with everybody, if you can’t assimilate into the culture at least a little bit, it’s never going to work. And I certainly couldn’t do it leading from the top in that way.”
Today, Rhimes says she recognizes the importance of trusting your team to do their work and giving them freedom to be creative; while she says she initially “started out as a micromanager,” a realization helped her course-correct.
“The thing that I learned most is you hire people and you let them do their jobs,” she said. “That free rein generally allows people to be far more creative, far more excited, and take more ownership of what they’re doing.”
Here’s what career experts say you should do if you find yourself making these mistakes too:
Micromanaging
Micromanaging can cause resentment on both sides. Nearly 3 in 4 workers considered micromanagement the biggest workplace red flag, according to a 2023 Monster survey of over 6,000 workers.
“People don’t feel like you trust them enough to do their jobs, and you end up feeling like you have to do more of their jobs as well,” says Adunola Adeshola, a workplace and career strategist and the founder of career coaching firm employeeREDEFINED.
Micromanaging can stifle your reports’ creativity, problem-solving and growth, says Amanda Augustine, a certified professional career coach at Careerminds. It could also make you more likely to burn out.
“It’s hard when you know you could do it faster,” Augustine says. “But if you can do it faster, then you’re always going to be the one doing it, and you have to remind yourself of that.”
Breaking a micromanaging habit starts with hiring people you trust to learn and to grow into doing the job well, Adeshola adds.
Some micromanaging comes from inadequate training or making assumptions, Adeshola adds. Being clear about what you expect may take a bit longer at first but can save you time fixing mistakes later. Adeshola, for example, sends her team a tutorial upfront with guidelines for completing a project.
And perfectionists, beware. The trait often dovetails with micromanaging.
“You cannot expect the next person to do things exactly how you would,” Adeshola says. Consider modifying your expectations to accept 80% or 90% of your ideal, she adds.
“If you start tweaking with the last 2%,” Adeshola says, “you’ll end up driving yourself and them crazy.”
Building relationships at work
Rhimes also learned that no matter how good you are at your job, you can’t skip out on building strong relationships with your colleagues.
In her 2015 book, “Year of Yes,” Rhimes wrote about her experience being a Black female showrunner in an environment where she was, as she calls it, “first, only and different.” Workers who feel like they may not obviously fit in with the rest of their team can feel pressure to work harder, sometimes to the detriment of building a culture fit.
But, “you don’t have to work yourself to the grave to prove that you deserve a spot there,” Adeshola says.
Building relationships at work can help you have people in your corner who can advocate for you and recommend you for hidden opportunities. “Everyone should be networking internally as well as externally to build their careers,” Augustine says.
You might schedule an introductory chat or periodic coffee with a coworker to catch up on what they’re working on or what they’re up to off the clock. Or finally say yes to happy hour.
“Even just being a good listener to other people can help you start to build relationships at work,” Adeshola says. “You just need to be curious, interested and open.”
