Consider this scenario: Jack is having a hard time with a project, but hasn’t been asking for help with his problems. You finally hear about his struggles. At this point, it’s appropriate to tell Jack that he needs to be more proactive in sharing his progress, even if it means admitting he’s struggling. You could have Jack give you daily updates as a way of helping, but I would only use that much structure for a brief period. The goal here isn’t to punish him with micromanagement for his failure to communicate status, because all you’re doing is punishing yourself and hindering his ability to be held accountable for his own work. Instead, your goal is to teach Jack what he needs to communicate, when, and how. A word of caution, though; if you treat a struggling engineer or project as a massive failure on the part of the individual or manager, she is going to feel that blame and criticism, and instead of giving you more information in the future, she’ll keep hiding it from you as a way of avoiding blame until it’s too late. Hiding important information intentionally is a failure, and getting stuck on a problem or making a mistake is often just an opportunity for learning.
In the long run, if you don’t figure out how to let go of details, delegate, and trust your team, you’re likely to suffer personally. Even if your team doesn’t quit, you’ll end up working longer and longer hours as your responsibilities increase. If you’re already in this situation, try limiting the hours you’ll let yourself work in a week. If you were only allowed to work 45 hours this week, what would you do with those 45 hours? Would you really spend five of them nitpicking a junior developer’s code? Would you pore over the details of some project that is going smoothly, searching for any minor error? Or would you direct your attention to bigger problems? Would you take some of those hours to focus on the future instead of the details of the current moment? Your time is too valuable to waste, and your team deserves a manager who is willing to trust them to do things on their own.