have you met any?
I’m not sure if in my day I was a micromanager or not. I think I’ve learned over time not to be one, but I sure had my share.
Micromanagement has to do with the personality of the manager. Watch out if you hear a manager define her/himself as a perfectionist…. You may have heard sometime “I have to be on top of everything to get things right.” That may be true in certain (very specific) situations, but in my opinion, in most situations, this is micromanaging and it has to do with insecurity and lack of time awareness.
If you think about it, both are really dangerous for an organization.
The first, insecurity, has to do with managers who think they know how to do things better than their teams and/or managers who don’t trust their teams. It can also be that the manager has no idea what the team is doing, and has to feel in control… This is the worst of the micromanagers, because that person will create a lot of wasted time in nonsense meetings.
The second, lack of time awareness, is also very dangerous. If a manager is micromanaging, s/he is spending time on things s/he shouldn’t be. And if it is during her/his extra time, it is even worse (I can think of more than one thing s/he could be doing instead of micromanaging).
Anyhow, if you cannot accept that things may be done worse than if you do them yourself… Don’t be a manager!
In many occasions, things won’t be done worse, they will be done differently. As a manager, you need the team to learn by themselves, and allowing them to make mistakes is the best way. I’m not saying that, as a manager, you should accept mistakes. Private businesses are for profit and mistakes go directly against the profit, but you do have to have some leeway. Nobody is perfect.
The only thing that keeps employees in their jobs is “safety”, and by “safety” I mean the emotional security that you are respected, well treated, well paid, well developed, challenged… and a micromanager will, without wanting, create a lack of trust, a lack of respect, . This is the anti-climax of “Safety”.
It’s easy to talk about what’s wrong with micromanagement but let’s get to how to improve this part.
Like many things in life, managing people could be summarized in the typical two axes (motivation and knowledge) and the famous 4 quadrants.
The graph is self explanatory, but if there are doubts, you can look at it again. 😊
If you, as a manager, know more than your employee about what needs to be done, you have 2 options:
1) do it yourself or
2) delegate, but don’t try to define everything that needs to be done so that you feel in control.
Worse, if you, as a manager, don’t know more than your employee, don’t get involved, trust their expertise. Ask her/him to present you with the strategy s/he is considering, and if there is a need, question it. Always leave some distance for the employee to do the real work.
If you don’t trust someone, check internally to see if the problem is you or based on facts.
If the trust is not based on facts, the problem is your. Consider if you have the tools to deal with such employees. An employee can be an asshole and a great asset at the same time. As a manager you need to know if you can retain her/him or are better off placing her/him in other parts of the organization where s/he can be a great asset.
Finally, if after all, you need to have everything under control, simply don’t be a manager. Not being a manager doesn’t have to mean going down the ladder, but finding your place.
