Micromanaging and How to Address it at the Workplace.

Introduction:

“Micromanagement” is a dirty word in today’s workplaces. Bosses who intervene too often or too extensively in their subordinates’ activities get a bad reputation, and most forward-thinking organizations have come to value employee autonomy more than oversight. Research shows that people have strong negative emotional and physiological reactions to unnecessary or unwanted help, and this can erode interpersonal relationships. Even the U.S. Army general George S. Patton, a leader in one of the most traditional command-and-control groups in the world, understood the danger of micromanaging: He famously said, “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”

In this article,?we’ll?be discussing micromanagement: -

ü?What?micromanage?is.

ü?Why do people?micromanage.

ü?What are the signs of micromanagement

ü?How to deal with a micromanaging boss (Ways to reform a Micromanager)

ü?How to stop oneself from micromanaging others.

What Micromanager is.

Micromanaging or micromanagement is a negative term that refers to management style.?It is a pattern of manager behaviour marked by excessive supervision and control of employees’ work and processes, as well as a limited delegation of tasks or decisions to employees.?

Micromanagers?generally avoid?giving decision-making power to their employees and?are typically overly?obsessed?with information-gathering.??

Why Do People Micromanage?

There is no straight answer to this?question. People micromanage for a variety of reasons which?can?include different feelings and emotions such as?fear of failure,?extreme need for control and domination, inexperience in management, insecurities, unskilled team members, unhealthy ego, etc. Some?micromanagers might be driven to?act so obsessively due to problems that they have at home and in their personal life.??

The most obvious and common reason for people to manage?is, however,?the lack of trust and respect in?the people they work with.

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What are Signs of Micromanagement

If?you’re?wondering whether?you’re?being micromanaged or if?you’re?a micromanager yourself, then below is the list which includes but not limited to:

1. Knowing everything.
2. Asking to be CC’d on every email.
3. Do not delegate.
4. Delegating not only what needs to be done, but how it should be done, leaving no room for the team to take their own initiative.
5. Wanting to know what each team member is working on all the time.
6. Ask for frequent updates and status reports.
7. Discourage independent decision-making.
8. Dictate how tasks should be done.
9. Never being satisfied with the deliverables
10. Re-do work other employees’ work.
11. Don’t show trust in their team.
12. Looking over the team’s shoulders (both literally and figuratively) to monitor what each member is working on.
13. Focus on details that are not important.
14. Occupy with the work assigned to others, thereby, taking on more work than they can handle because they believe they can do it better.
15. Complain Constantly and Are Never Satisfied

From the list provided above, it is easy to understand that a micromanager struggles with meeting deadlines since work has to be redone repeatedly, and valuable time is spent poring over inconsequential details. Team members eventually become frustrated and resentful as their work is undermined at every stage, and they have no autonomy over how to run an assigned project. Because team members' skills and development on the job are stunted, the micromanaging style of?leadership?is ineffective.

How to deal with a micromanaging boss (Ways to Reform a Micromanager)

A micromanager who has identified themselves as such can take a number of steps to break this habit:

ü?Set a couple of metrics that define success for any given project and ignore every other detail that is not defined.

ü?Delegate “what” needs to be done and leave out the “how.”

ü?Have an open-door policy for members of the team to use for coaching or further guidance if and when they want it.

ü?Set a deadline for each stage of an assigned project, after which a meeting with a reasonable time limit should be conducted to receive updates on the work.

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How to stop oneself from micromanaging others.

1. Nurture a trusting environment: Build trust in your team?to free up everyone’s schedule and improve productivity. You won’t have to constantly approve every little thing, and employees will feel empowered to move projects forward without your review.

And when it’s time to review their performance, staff will welcome your?constructive feedback?knowing it comes from a desire to see them improve, not to control their work.

2. Let go of perfection: Often, managers try to overcome a?fear of failure?by being too controlling. Understand there’s?more than one way to do a job. So long as your team delivers on project requirements, minor details aren’t important.

3. Make space for learning: Give your team the autonomy?to experiment and find new ways of doing things. Adopt a fail-forward attitude by treating mistakes as growth opportunities and discussing the lessons learned openly and honestly. Your role is to guide, not steer, so only step in if you repeatedly see the same mistakes.?

4. Set clear expectations: Combat error-causing assumptions by?establishing clear expectations?that organically limit your involvement in your employees' work. Provide detailed instructions where necessary and let your team know when to expect your feedback.?

5. Learn to delegate: A?good manager?assigns tasks based on each employee’s skillset, strengths, and development goals. You’re not concerned with directing the work's completion but with ensuring each worker has the necessary resources, training, and authority to deliver.

That’s why delegation is an essential part of effective management. You’re leveraging strengths and managing weaknesses to help everyone succeed, including the company more generally, since?studies show leaders who delegate well drive 33% more revenue than those who don’t.?

6. Focus on what only you can do: Attend to tasks only you can complete, like establishing goals, setting metrics, and fixing deadlines. Limit your efforts to managing outcomes rather than activity.

7. Provide transparency: Use?project management applications?to help you stay on top of a project’s progress without being intrusive. These platforms create visibility around individual tasks, tracking them in real time and letting you see if there’s a problem before it becomes an issue.?

8. Hire the right people: While perfect employees don’t exist, hire someone who comes close to having the ideal combination of qualifications and talent to deliver what you need. Once trained, you’ll be confident in their abilities and comfortable granting them autonomy to get on with the job.

9. Micromanage cautiously: There will be rare instances when you need to micromanage, like training a new employee or supporting an underperforming teammate. But the examples where micromanagement is necessary are few and far between. Remind yourself that this is a temporary measure. Once the situation rights itself, you’ll return to your original boundaries.

10. Be kind to yourself: For most, becoming an effective manager means developing a new skill set. You aren’t going to perfect it overnight, and mistakes are bound to happen. Give yourself space to learn and grow along with your team.?

You’ve got a great team...

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Conclusion:

Micromanagement is a form of leadership that may produce results in the?short-term, but it hurts employee and company morale over time. Usually, micromanaging has a negative connotation because an employee may feel that a micromanager is being condescending towards them, due to a perceived lack of faith in the employee's competency.

Also, a manager who implements this management style creates an environment where their team develops insecurity and a lack of confidence in its work. In the absence of the manager, the team may find it difficult to function.

A micromanager will usually use up most of their time supervising the work of their direct reports and exaggerating the importance of minor details to subordinates; time that could have been used to get other important things done. Although micromanagement is easily recognized by others in the firm, the micromanager may not view themselves as such.

In contrast to a micromanager, a?macro manager?is more effective in their management approach. Macro-managing defines broad tasks for direct reports to accomplish and then leaves them alone to do their work. Macro managers have confidence that the team can complete the same task without being continually reminded of the process.

Giving?freedom?of independent decision-making?is?also?unthinkable for micromanagers. While it’s likely that?your work?must?go through some form of the approval process, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t make some decisions on your own in the process of your work. It is?actually the?quite opposite – you were hired because you are the most qualified person for that job?and?because?the decisions that you can take based on your expertise could drive business growth.??

Steve Jobs says: ‘’It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.’’?

Author: Uche Douglas