Good managers delegate outcomes. Bad managers micromanage.

Delegation of activities by itself is difficult and requires lot of practice.

Managers sense a loss of control when delegating work and to overcome this loss, they tend to control the thinking or the planning part of an outcome.

However, employees experience true growth when they also own the thinking or the planning part of an outcome and not just the execution part.

Good managers make team members own the outcomes by inviting them to plan and execute.

Employees grow and take on more responsibilities when they own the outcomes completely i.e. from planning to execution. In this process, employees can make mistakes but that too is an integral part of their growth.

The opposite of delegating outcomes is micromanaging both thinking and execution parts of an outcome.