Micromanagement — The Absolute Worst?
Many employees dread having a manager who is a micromanager. But in fact it’s quite rare. There is another, much more common management style with negative consequences.
What is micromanagement?
Micromanagement is a management style where a manager closely observes and controls the work of their direct reports.
It’s characterized by constantly checking progress, not delegating work, giving very detailed instructions (often without the real purpose behind), interfering to correct and requesting every little detail to be done their way.
The employee experience is often this:
- Need to ask permission for almost everything
- Need to report every small detail
- Being told what to do, how to do and when to do
- Being surprised that their work got fixed by the manager
- Being shown how what they did was wrong
- Being told they cannot be trusted
What is not micromanagement?
As you see, micromanagement is quite specific. Not everything your manager says or asks is micromanagement. It’s their duty to give feedback, coach and delegate while ensuring business continuity.
Things can be very subjective, for example, people who just enter the workforce and are not sure what to expect may find it surprising that they have to follow prescribed steps instead of having unlimited creative freedom. As evident in newspapers from the 19th century, It’s been like that for decades, it’s not limited to millennials or gen Z.
After all, it’s not about the employee’s comfort, it’s about being effective.
Another example is communication differences. A manager who is a high-C DiSC profile may be perceived by a high-D subordinate as a micromanager, because they usually give a lot of data and reasoning with a list of steps to follow.
Reasons for micromanagement
Why do managers micromanage?
- Being micromanaged before, assuming this is what management looks like
- Not trusting their direct reports (usually due to lack of 1:1s, giving feedback and coaching)
- Perfectionism — the belief things should be perfect, no matter how long they take or what the price is
- Insecurity and needing to prove things are going well
- Lack of awareness that they micromanage and the negative effects
- Theory X — Belief that employees only work well under tight supervision. It assumes that the typical worker has little ambition, avoids responsibility, is less intelligent, is lazier, and works solely for a sustainable income. Motivation is simply rewards or punishments.
It is contrary to Theory Y which assumes employees are internally motivated, enjoy their job, and work to better themselves without a direct reward in return
Why is micromanagement bad?
Motivation used to be all about primitive survival (food, clothing, shelter). It then evolved into the culture of reward and punishment that we find in most businesses.
Nowadays it is mostly based on three pillars: autonomy, mastery and purpose.
Under micromanagement:
- Autonomy decreases as the manager gives no freedom or judgment
- Mastery suffers as it must be the manager’s way without any experimentation
- Purpose is often following detailed instructions over the real goal behind
Direct reports’ fear of making a mistake causes hiding errors and not asking questions that expedite learning. It discourages creativity and innovation.
Stress levels tend to be high for both the manager and the employee — the employee is not trusted and put down, the manager is obsessed with every small detail.
These eventually lead to high turnover which is very expensive for the business.
So micromanagement looks quite bad. What about its inverse, undermanagement?
What is undermanagement?
Undermanagement is a management style characterized by a lack of sufficient oversight and guidance for employees. Sometimes referred to as macroneglected.
It’s further characterized by a lack of clarity, expectations, rare feedback, unavailability to support, ignoring conflicts, neglecting performance issues and challenges and not taking part in team activities.
The employee experience is often this:
- Absentee manager
- Not being given clear goals
- Fire and forget — given tasks to execute without follow-ups or check-ins
- Not getting feedback, no difficult conversations, not knowing what to improve and what they do well
Surprise — it is much more prevalent than micromanagement!
Reasons for undermanagement
Why do managers undermanage?
- Being micromanaged before, they swear to do the opposite and never be perceived as a micromanager
- Overconfidence in the team’s ability
- Wish to give autonomy and let the team experiment and find the way
- Not a priority — overwhelmed with workload, they choose to drop management
- Fear of difficult conversations, conflict and giving feedback
- Wish to be liked
- Lack of awareness that they undermanage and the negative effects
- Inattention to results — an environment in which the organization doesn’t seem to care about positive and negative outcomes
Why is undermanagement bad?
The manager assumes the employee has the same context and understanding, which is, of course, rarely the case.
This results in an employee who lacks direction, has no idea what to aim for, and after finishing tasks is often requested to make fixes, or learns only in the next annual performance review how they did.
At first glance, it seems like autonomy is well served. But a closer look shows that this is more of anarchy, as there are no clear goals and no clear feedback, and it is often “crushed” at the last moment when the manager finally must judge the deliverable, sometimes by unclear standards.
The same goes for mastery. Imagine a software engineer who thinks they write amazing code, unaware of practices like automated tests (yes, it still exists in 2024).
The purpose part of motivation is often missing because there is no one to give or verify goals.
Avoiding micromanagement and undermanagement
Roberto Ferraro created some vivid illustrations, such as this one, to make his point.
How to actionably find the sweet spot?
- 1:1 — building trust and rapport
- Feedback — encouraging the right future behavior
- Coaching — getting the direct reports to grow
- Delegation — effectively hand over responsibilities, which includes predetermined check-ins and availability to support
- Set clear goals, provide the “why”, the context and the expectations
- Set psychological safety
- In those occurrences where direct reports ask for permission, teach them to use “I intend to do …” instead, as beautifully explained in the book Turn the Ship Around!
Other common management styles
There are several management styles that have their own pros and cons.
The list is not MECE, meaning, not complete and styles partially overlap.
- Servant — adaptation to members’ needs
- Laissez-Faire — high autonomy to members
- Autocratic — decisiveness, centralized decision-making
- Transactional — carrots and sticks based on performance
- Bureaucratic — strict adherence to rules and processes
- Democratic — collective decision-making
- Strategic — preferring the long-term
- Charismatic — charming to inspire
- Transformational — inspiring toward a compelling vision
- Coaching — skills development
