Sometimes, there just is a need for "I need you to". This is literally called delegation.
And as a boss, you need to learn to delegate and first thing about delegation is that the other person must know clearly something was delegated to them.
Playing games around delegation only makes for worse experience. Creates noise, uncertainty and unnecessary failure.
In the end, if I am hired and paid for 8h of my time, I expect my boss to tell me what she needs me to do within those 8h.
Now, there are different ways to delegate. You can tell them "I need you to" 20 times a day pointing to small things or they can tell them "I need you to" on the first day of their job and then shut up about it.
One of my first questions to my new bosses is literally "what do you need me to do", unless they have already told me. This is to avoid any confusion about what I am supposed to be doing.
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All this nice and softy stuff comes after you have the very basic business of managing team done. To be nice to your team you need to have a reason to have a team and then you need to have a team or at least collection of people who are assigned as your resources for you to delegate work to.
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There is a pyramid of needs on both employer and employee side.
The employee needs to be paid first. Then treated nicely. Given the choice of being paid and treated nicely I would chose being treated nicely but that's just because I can go somewhere else to be paid and also have savings to not have to worry about it for a long time. If you don't have savings and don't have somewhere else to get paid, you care less about being treated nicely.
Likewise, the employer needs work to be done first. Whether they care for their workforce or not, work is more important because if the work isn't taken care of then there is no chance they can take care for the team anyway. At least not long term.