IMO this approach is definitely not one-size-fits-all. It's usually best to provide strong leadership up front in the form of clear expectations, but let people

IMO this approach is definitely not one-size-fits-all. It's usually best to provide strong leadership up front in the form of clear expectations, but let people experiment in areas outside their comfort zone. This could mean putting some of the more junior team members underneath a senior developer -- the senior developer gets to experiment with management, and the junior developers benefit from some guidance. Overall, you have to use techniques like this in the context of a situational leadership framework. There's a ton of reading material on situational leadership, but basically it comes down to recognizing the areas where people are knowledgeable and/or confident and providing the right kind of support. The "let 'em fail" tactic is great for people who are confident but not knowledgeable -- they learn something about the topic, and they learn about their own (lack of) understanding of said topic. There are many situations (when people are neither knowledgeable nor confident) that require you to do more hands-on management of your team -- and that's ok, since your goal is to help them move up the knowledge/confidence curve. Very rarely do managers in our time have hire/fire power; in my experience it's very difficult to fire anyone for performance-related issues. Usually the best you can do is offer to swap your "problem children" with another manager and hope they do better in a new environment.