Raise your hand if you hate being micromanaged
Me too! It was demotivating, it made me feel like I wasn’t trusted to do my job, it stifled my creativity and ambition. I considered leaving that organisation, so I wasn't surprised to learn that my personal experience was supported by many studies demonstrating how micromanagement can negatively impact both employee and organisational performance. A recent survey revealed:
Micromanagement takes different forms, but it usually involves excessive supervision and attempts to control people and actions. It creates a toxic cycle of fear and mistrust, harming employees, organisational culture and, ultimately, it will impact your bottom line. Here's how:
Increases turnover & staff absence costs
Decreases performance and productivity levels
Shuts down communication, stifling creativity and innovation
So why do managers continue to micromanage?
In many cases, micromanagement stems from a lack of trust or lack of experience. Maybe the manager themselves has been burned in the past by an employee who didn't meet expectations, or maybe they're just naturally anxious about relinquishing control.
Start-ups and growth stage companies generally pride themselves on creating a flat, collaborative, working structure, placing strong emphasis on ‘getting things done’. But to assume your organisation is not at risk from micromanagers is dangerously misplaced confidence.
In fact at start-ups and growth stage companies, where remote working is the norm and for many employees it’s their first job or their first managerial role, micromanagement is a real and present threat.
Remember, we are human
When we get overwhelmed, stressed and tired, we don’t always show up as the leaders we want to be. Those negative tendencies that we try to train ourselves out of may creep back when are under pressure. But a quick self-awareness check can make a huge difference. In a recent article, Gartner offered these 5 questions to gain deeper insight into your managerial style. Don’t be demoralised if you answer ‘yes’ to any of these questions, just read on for some simple tips on how to make a change:
Do I often have concerns about or question (outspokenly or silently) employees’ productivity?
Do I find myself constantly wanting to be informed of every bit of progress made?
Do I peek into systems records to check that someone actually did what I asked?
Do I find myself limiting others’ authority to keep myself engaged with initiatives?
Do I find it difficult to delegate tasks because I don’t trust they will get done?
Micromanagement: breaking the cycle
Learning how to deal with micromanagement is all about understanding what leadership is and isn’t. Leadership is often empowering: employees flourish through clear expectations, reasonable amounts of project guidance, and trust in their own decision-making skills. Micromanagement, on the other hand, is disheartening. Even the most well-intentioned leaders can go a few steps too far when they do or say things that take away worker autonomy.
So, what can we do to call out micromanagement and change micromanaging behaviours? When I'm coaching leaders, I repeat this mantra often 'the antithesis of micromanagement is autonomy'.
I’ll dive deeper into autonomy as a concept, and how it can supercharge your organisational culture, in my next blog. But for now, let’s start by comparing two different approaches:
Helping your teams to excel. On their own
Adjusting your style to increase accountability and develop autonomy in your teams will improve performance and increase well-being, but it’s not easy. Autonomous leaders may need to work hard at confirming the quality of their team's work and accepting responsibility for the outcome regardless of their team's independence.
Try these ideas to get started, if you are feeling cautious, go slow and treat this exercise as an experiment:
Reflect on your behaviour – if you micromanage, consider where that might be coming from. When you feel those old excuses creeping in, remind yourself of the reasons why you shouldn’t micromanage and adapt your approach
Delegate and prioritise your own workload – use a delegation framework. Give your employees more opportunities to learn and develop and give yourself more bandwidth to get on with your own stretch goals
Communicate goals and priorities clearly – define the outcome you are expecting, define accountability, check for understanding, listen to their feedback. Then trust your employees get on with it
Support your employees – autonomy is built on a foundation creating trust and psychological safety. Agree a methodology for checking in with each other (frequency, method and level of detail). Use the TRM framework (see below) to find the right level of support.
Trust, but verify.
Of course, there are some situations where a manager will need to play a more active role, but this shouldn't necessarily be considered micromanaging. For example, new employees will require more guidance while learning how things are done at a new company; projects with legal or high-cost implications will be managed differently in order to mitigate the associated risks; sometimes employees don’t meet expectations, they may need to be retrained or put on a performance improvement plan.
Recognizing that that a one size fits all approach to management and oversight doesn't work, Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, discussed a Task Relevant Maturity Framework (TRM) in his book, 'High Performance Output'. Understanding and applying a TRM can help managers to adapt their style appropriately, avoiding unwarranted micromanagement.
In conclusion
Sometimes it feels like the line between being an accountable, engaged and informed leader and micromanaging your employees is very thin.
When managers micromanage, they get too involved in the day-to-day details of their employees' work, to the point where it starts to impact performance and productivity. It can create a culture of fear and mistrust, as employees feel like they're always being watched and criticized.
Managers must be able to trust their employees, and employees need to learn how to work effectively without excessive supervision. It is not easy, but the benefits will be huge – for everyone involved. Don’t miss out on the massive organisational ROI that comes from empowering employees to be their best selves.
References & Citations:
How to stop micromanaging your team. Author: Rebecca Knight
How to deal with micromanagement at work. Author: Maria Waida
Is micromanagement at work a form of bullying? Here are three things you should know. Heidi Lynne Kurter
Micromanaging your remote workers? Own it, then fix it. Author: Jackie Wiles
High Impact Management. Author: Andrew S Grove
https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884
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