Why Micromanagers Are Evil And How To Defeat Them

Micromanagers destroy happiness and success.

Your perfectionist boss who wants you to deliver every PowerPoint presentation with 32-point Arial font titles, or else.

Your controlling colleague who keeps the office thermostat at exactly 71.5 degrees Fahrenheit and scowls at you when you're 10 seconds late to another mind-numbingly boring meeting.

Your suffocating relationship partner who wants to know where you are every second of the day and constantly plagues you with "What are you up to?" texts. 

These people are killing your career.

A study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology showed that people who believe they are being micromanaged perform at a lower level.

A large-scale survey by FranklinCovey Solutions showed that this is especially true in the workplace as global employees identified micromanagement as the biggest barrier to their productivity and success.

Micromanagers are also killing themselves.

A longitudinal study published in the Journal of Health Psychology shows that micromanagement and other types of perfectionist behavior causes poor health.

The study followed 450 people for 6.5 years found that perfectionism predicted early mortality.

Another study by researchers at Queendom found that perfectionism negatively affects work performance, social relationships, self-esteem, and psychological wellbeing.

Whether you're at the mercy of a micromanager or you are a micromanager yourself, your performance and your health is being negatively affected. 

The only way to stop things from getting worse is to take a stand against controlling, perfectionist behavior has soon as you identify it. 

But first, you need to understand why controlling behavior is so hard to escape from.

The Illusion Of Control

Most people have far less power over you than you think they do. This includes your micromanager boss.

It’s easy to get caught in the trap of thinking that you are at the mercy of others. In fact, it's natural.

In the field of theoretical psychology, there’s an idea that people have a tendency to overestimate their ability to control events. The idea is known as the illusion of control.

A report in Psychological Science demonstrates that people who are given a very small amount of power or given power temporarily often become more controlling, to the point of grossly overestimating how much they can control events and people.

The key is that this illusion works both ways.

Just as you can have a tendency to think that you have more control over others than you do, you also have the tendency to think that others have more control over you than they really do.

If you’re in a situation where you think someone has control over you and, at the same time, they think they have control over you–you’re in trouble.

Under these conditions, the illusion of control can become very powerful. If left unchecked, you will give up more and more control and the other person will take more and more control. 

5 Steps To Defeating Evil Micromanagers

The only way to break the cycle of illusionary control is to challenge its existence.

Call you boss's bluff. Stand up to your negative colleague. Say no to your relationship partner's guilt trip.

Encourage the other person to show you their cards. How much power do they really have?

You’ll be surprised by the answer. 

Here are 5 steps to defeating the evil micromanagers in your career and life...

1. Go on a relationship fast.

Have you heard of people going on an information diet or information fast?

For a set period of time, these people give up social media, television, Internet gossip, and all forms of news. Most are surprised when they find out just how dependent they’ve become on these constant sources of stimulus.

They’re also surprised when they find out how much better their lives are without most of this stimulus. Likewise...

Going on a relationship fast will show you how draining some of your relationships are.

Stop letting your boss come into your office every hour to ask you the status of the project you're working on. Instead, go work in the cafeteria or in an unoccupied conference room.

Stop letting your colleague bother you with his boo hoo stories about his life. Instead, ask to be transferred to another office and eat lunch by yourself.  

A relationship fast will show you exactly which relationships you should let go of and which you should keep.

The only way to expose the people who shouldn’t be in your life is to gain some distance from them. Get away for a few days.

Change up your work routine so you can spend more time with yourself without having other people's controlling, perfectionist behavior thrust onto you.

2. Cut controlling people out of your life.

Once you’ve identified which relationships are negative and controlling, it’s time to cut them loose.

Don’t try to fix the micromanagers in your life. Don’t waste your time trying to show someone else how controlling they are. They'll never see it. 

When you try to force change, you give up even more control over your life. Instead of fighting to show someone they're wrong, simply end the relationship quietly and cordially.

There’s no need to explain yourself or create a scene. Just walk away. 

Some people, like a controlling boss, might threaten you or your job if you start to pull away. That's fine. Just keep a record of what's happening and discuss the issue with HR.

Your boss has much less power than you think he does.

He likely reports to multiple people above him and is tied down by many more rules than you are. Don't fall victim to the illusion of control. Assert yourself and refuse to apologize for it. Besides...

Do you really want to work for someone who is going to suck the life out of you and your career every single day? 

3. Master your own emotions.

Emotions are not magic. Most people believe that they have very little control over how they feel.

When these people get in a mood, they stay there. As a result, they make emotional decisions, often having to spend large amounts of time and energy correcting these decisions later.

This makes it very easy for micromanagers and other types of controlling, perfectionist people to control you. Micromanagers will get in your head when you're in a bad mood and passive-aggressively push your buttons. Or, they will use your fear of losing your job against you to keep you doing what they want you to do. 

The only way to truly rid yourself of micromanagers is to make them irrelevant. Take away the power they have to influence your emotions. 

Learn to counteract your negative emotions upfront so these people can't use them against you. This will help you make choices based on logic rather than on whim. The goal is to consistently make rational decisions that result in positive emotions.

4. Stop being dependent on approval.

All the pain in your life is the result of dependence.

You depend on your boss for money so you have to listen to his incessant questions and answer him promptly or he will make your life miserable.

You depend on your colleagues' happiness because if you don't keep them happy, the next 8 hours at the office will be miserable. 

On and on it goes until your entire life and career revolve around getting other people's approval. The more you rely on approval to feel good about yourself and the more you use approval as a benchmark for your progress, the more you let other people control you.

Over time, everyone in your life will have the power to micromanage you because you want to keep their approval. 

The only way to stop this cycle is to start validating yourself. Start giving yourself approval. Don't use other people's responses as a benchmark for success. Instead, develop and maintain a strong sense of confidence in yourself so you always feel successful and so you always have the energy you need to keep becoming more successful.  

5. Choose to be confident, not controlled.

Never let your confidence levels be controlled by other people. Many people allow micromanagers to stay in their lives because they depend on these people for a confidence boost.

Your boss comes into your office, asks you about your project, you talk for a bit, he or she leaves, and you feel good about yourself. You feel like you just got a little closer to your boss. You feel like your job is a little safer.

Over time, your happiness and confidence become completely dependent on how many times your boss comes into your office. Or how many times he or she says good job. Or how many times he smiles at you.

How you feel about yourself should never be determined by other people.

Confidence protects against dependency and control. The more self-confidence you have, the less likely you will be controlled by them. But...

Confidence doesn’t just happen. You have to develop it. Too many people fail to realize that confidence is an emotional state, like happiness, anger, and sadness.

You can step into a confident emotional state at will.

Just like you can make yourself happy by acting happy or sad by acting sad, you can make yourself confident by acting confident. You can decide to be confident. Start deciding to be confident in yourself. Confidence will protect you against the games that micromanagers play to keep you under their control. 

Now it's your turn...

Have you ever had to work with a micromanager? If so, which of the above steps did you take to defeat (or escape) them? Which steps are missing from the list?

I also write for Fast Company and Entrepreneur Magazine:

• Why Entrepreneurs Who Complain Are Setting Themselves Up to Fail
• 10 People Who Will Destroy Your Business
• The 10 Skills You Need To Grow Your Business