The power of restrain in business is often overlooked

In my usual trolling of my feeds, I came across a post in HBR about restraint in business. It had three key take-a-ways for me that I thought were pretty solid. Most of us should follow them. 

Delegate, don’t command and control. Effective leaders understand how to motivate with just enough direction that their people feel a true sense of ownership. Micromanagement occurs when your desire to act overwhelms the need to lead.

Delegating is a key to success, but in my opinion, it has to be done in a manner that empowers your team. Delegate tasks to team members that take advantage of their strengths or challenges their weaknesses so they can improve. 

Consider quality over quantity of voice. We all know the rare individual who does not talk often, but when she does, everyone listens. There is tremendous power in increasing one’s listen-to-talk ratio and choosing the right moments for expression.

I'm at fault with this one. I talk a lot and at times, should let simplicity rule. Listening is a key to leadership and that's something I do well, but it doesn't help when I'm the one talking all the time. Lessoned learned there.

Always leave them wanting more. Consider cutting your meeting time by around 20–30% to make sure you focus on the right things first, and to understand that your goal may be to have them wish for more time, or be motivated to follow up.

I'm all for short meetings. I don't like the chit chatter than can extend meetings to an hour plus. 15 - 20 minutes should be all you need to get through action items. In fact, if you're using some of the tools I wrote about earlier this week, you might not even need to have team meetings to walk through what should already be in progress. 

What management and leadership tips do you have?