So I let myself go by all of this talk about giving more freedom and autonomy to your team. "Don't micro-manage them", they said. "Trust them," they said. And that's the way I wish to be treated. That's how I personally work best.

Alas, this only works only when they're truly good at what they're doing. Sometimes I feel like we'd go faster if I did everything myself. These baby devs must be taken by the hand every damn step of the way.

Freedom does not work with juniors. They don't have the required experience. That's why juniors usually have mentors assigned to them to manage the junior.

Just give them enough rope to hang themselves, they'll either use that peice of freedom to their advantage, or hang them selves.

You can always hire more to replace the dead ones.

I think you're leaving out a few crucial things.

Micro management means that you (try to) control every step and every detail of e.g. a workflow - even if it does not concern you. You make every decision, hence degrading your "work force" to mindless drones.

Which will sooner or later blow up, as not only the "work force" doesn't like being treated like a non-human being, but mostly because you yourself will fail.

The manager in micromanagement becomes a single point of failure, and his health - especially mentally - is doomed to fail at a certain point.

Reason I explain this... There's a difference between micro management and observation.

A lot of modern workflows focus on information management and information flow - as they, simplified, determined that missing information and communication is one of the reasons why things fail.

Which is true. Question is: How do you deal with it?

In my opinion, it's bogus to try and enforce someone to keep me informed 24/7. Hence it's my job to observe - looking at e.g. GIT changelogs, relevant tickets, and taking part at meeting regarding critical decisions.

I can intervene if necessary. But most of the time I'm an "hidden peeping tom"… so people don't have to work to keep me informed.

It's an inversion of micro management in my opinion.

Yes. They will make mistakes. Yes. They will have to learn. But it's best to let them have their experience, guide them and show them how they could do it better.

Tutor and teach, instead of dictate and preach.

Sure, but the phrase goes "Hire good people then let them do their thing."

You can't hire good people and micromanage them true, but you also can't hire incompetent Devs and just leave them alone either.

No micromanage does not mean no supervision.
It is not "trust" it is "trust by verify"

Someone in your organization needs leadership training.