On management: Do nothing when there is nothing to do

What Warren Buffett said about investment is true for management too:

"The trick is, when there is nothing to do, do nothing." 

The reality is that, sometimes, managers are intervening too much. This has a few bad effects in my experience: It reduces people's proactiveness, creates weird dynamics, reduces people's autonomy, protects them from learning through failure, and creates frustration for the manager when things still don't work.

As an example, a person who's too involved in meetings gets feedback to give others more room, without understanding why others aren't contributing in the first place. Maybe it's a lack of context. Maybe they don't feel safe. The intervention targets the wrong problem.

One of the approaches that has worked for me over the years is to intervene when there is a clear problem. If things are running smoothly (even if imperfectly), I stay out. When running into real issues, my intervention acts as a buffer until we figure out the right solution. So it doesn't become a constant involvement. I still monitor, but that's looking from the outset and acting selectively rather than jumping into action every time. 

The hardest part of management isn't knowing when to act. It's knowing when not to.