by Leslie Rohonczy, Executive Coach, IMC, PCC | ©2024 | www.leslierohonczy.com
In my work as an executive coach, I've encountered numerous leaders and teams who are grappling with the pitfalls of micromanagement. Recently, I worked with three different leaders whose micromanaging style highlighted the pervasive nature and detrimental effects of this derailing leadership behaviour.
My first client, an ambitious manager, was bright, capable, experienced, and determined. After finding himself passed over repeatedly for a promotion, with no good explanation as to why, he was desperate. Despite his stellar operational expertise and experience, the inability to relinquish control over minor operational details stifled his team's growth, created poor employee satisfaction scores, and undermined his leadership potential.
The second client faced a different challenge. His micromanagement instinct stemmed from a deep-seated inability to trust his employees. This lack of trust wasn't due to any inherent untrustworthiness in his team; rather, it was his failure to invest time in building meaningful relationships with them. His need for control created a barrier that prevented the development of trust and intimacy so essential for high-functioning teams.
The third client, a newly promoted senior leader, struggled under the weight of her own leader's micromanaging style. Despite her new executive role, my client’s boss continually overstepped into her sandbox, making decisions on her behalf, and undermining her authority in the presence of other executives. This not only made her feel untrusted and incapable, but also prevented her from growing into her new responsibilities and taking up her full leadership space with her team, peers, and the Board of Directors.
RECOGNIZING THE SIGNS OF MICROMANAGEMENT
Micromanagement can create an unhealthy work environment by stifling employee growth, reducing productivity, and preventing individuals from performing at their best. By identifying micromanagement tendencies early, you can adopt healthier leadership practices before the situation deteriorates.
Here are some signs that you might be micromanaging. As you read each one, ask yourself, “do I do this?”
Constant Oversight: You find yourself frequently checking in on your team's work, even when they haven't asked for feedback. You often involve yourself in minor project details that your team should handle independently. You notice that your hovering creates tension in your employees.
Resistance To or Difficulty Delegating: You take on most responsibilities yourself, even when your team is fully capable. You are reluctant to delegate tasks, fearing they will fail without your direct involvement. You see how hard employees are working, and feel you’d be burdening them, so you do it yourself instead.
Lack of Trust: You require employees to check in with you before making every decision, and you insist on approving all project deliverables before they proceed.
Perfectionism: You have high standards and expect output from employees to be perfectly executed. You strive to control every aspect of your team's work. You feel anxious when tasks are not done exactly your way.
Focus on Minor Details: You concentrate more on correcting insignificant details rather than focusing on strategic goals and opportunities, solving critical issues facing the team, or fostering employee development. Sometimes, you miss the big picture because you are focused on the minor details.
Taking Over Tasks: When you spot a mistake, you prefer to fix it yourself instead of allowing the employee to correct it and learn from the experience. You insert yourself in certain tasks that you enjoy, even though your team is fully capable and expected to deliver on them.
Discouraging Independence: You want to be informed about every move your team makes, no matter how trivial. You discourage independent thinking, new ways of working, or creative experimentation. You don’t appreciate it when employees express opinions that challenge your own.
Overworking: Believing you are the most capable person for the job, you often work overtime to rectify others' mistakes and ensure everything is perfect. You can’t shut off work at the end of the day. You expect employees to respond to your emails in the evenings and on weekends.
If you're still uncertain about whether you're micromanaging, seek feedback from your employees. An anonymous survey can provide an honest assessment of your level of involvement. While this feedback may be hard to hear, it's essential to listen to your team's input and take action to address your micromanagement habits.
MICROMANAGER SELF-ASSESSMENT TOOL
Self-assessment can provide valuable insights into your management style and highlight areas for improvement. By reflecting on your behavior and assessing your tendencies, you can gauge the level of micromanagement that feels natural to you and determine how it affects your team.
This self-diagnosis tool is designed to help you evaluate your management style objectively. Consider the following questions and rate yourself on a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 represents "hands-off" and 5 signifies "micromanager." Reflect on your typical behaviors and interactions with your team to get an accurate assessment.
Remember, this exercise aims to foster self-awareness and promote healthy leadership practices.
How often do you check in on your team’s progress?
(1: Occasionally, 3: Often, 5: Constantly)
How comfortable are you with delegating important tasks?
(1: Very comfortable, 3: Somewhat comfortable, 5: Very uncomfortable)
Do you feel the need to review and edit the work your team produces?
(1: Rarely, 3: Sometimes, 5: Almost always)
How often do you provide detailed instructions on how to do tasks?
(1: Rarely, 3: Sometimes, 5: Regularly)
How frequently do you override decisions made by your team?
(1: Seldom, 3: Sometimes, 5: Very frequently)
INTERPRETING YOUR SCORE
After rating yourself, analyze your scores to understand your micromanagement tendencies better. High total scores (19-25) suggest that you are likely to have micromanaging behaviours, while lower scores (5-11) indicate a less controlling, more hands-off approach. Moderate scores (12-18) can suggest a balanced approach but may also hint at areas where you could improve your delegation and trust in your team.
If you find that your scores are at the higher end of the scale, reflect on the potential reasons that are likely driving these behaviors. Are you struggling to trust your team's capabilities? Do you have a perfectionist streak that drives you to control every detail? Recognizing these patterns is the first step towards adopting a more empowering leadership style.
To further refine your self-awareness, solicit feedback from your team in the form of an anonymous survey. This can provide you with insights into how your management style affects your employees. While this feedback may be difficult to hear, it’s a valuable tool for identifying areas where you can curb your micromanagement tendencies and develop a healthier, more productive work environment.
8 IMPACTS OF MICROMANAGING
The ‘habit’ of micromanagement can damage your team, organization, and career. Here are the eight major impacts of micromanagement:
IMPACT 1: LOSS OF CONTROL
Ironically, micromanagement often results in losing the very control you're trying to maintain. By relying solely on control as your management tool, you limit your flexibility and effectiveness. Instead of gaining control over your team and projects, you end up losing it, along with valuable time. Different management styles can be effective with different staff members, and excessively controlling behaviors will not only diminish your ability to adapt and communicate effectively as an effective leader; it will demotivate certain employees.
Takeaway: Over-relying on control narrows your management style, ultimately reducing your capacity to manage and communicate effectively.
IMPACT 2: LOSS OF TRUST
Micromanagement erodes trust between you and your team. When employees feel micromanaged, they view you not as a supportive leader but as a control freak. This leads to a breakdown of trust, which can drastically reduce productivity and can cause your best performers to leave. Trust is a two-way street; your team needs to trust you just as much as you trust them.
Takeaway: Micromanagement destroys trust, which affects employee engagement, output, and retention.
IMPACT 3: DEPENDENT EMPLOYEES
Micromanaged employees become overly dependent on your guidance and approval. This dependency stifles their confidence and initiative, making them less capable of performing tasks independently. This not only takes a toll on your time and energy as a leader, but it also wastes the unique skills and talents that each employee brings to the table. When employees are allowed to think independently, innovation and great achievements are possible.
Takeaway: Micromanagement fosters dependency, and radically diminishing the unique contributions and growth of your employees.
IMPACT 4: MANAGER & EMPLOYEE BURNOUT
As a leader who constantly oversees every detail of your team’s work, this exhausting and unsustainable level of micromanagement can quickly lead to burnout, affecting both your professional and personal life. Burnout can cause you to become disillusioned with your job, potentially leading to departure from your role (voluntary or not!) and can also lead to wider disengagement and stress across your team as a result. Employees who feel micromanaged often experience low morale and reduced job satisfaction, leading to burnout and disengagement.
Takeaway: Micromanagement not only harms your employees but also poses a significant risk to your own mental and physical health.
IMPACT 5: HIGH TURNOVER OF STAFF
Most people find micromanagement unbearable and will eventually leave. You may feel that you have valid reasons for the urge to micromanage your employees (ego, insecurity, or inexperience, for example). But none of these justifies the misery of this particular employee experience, not to mention the high turnover rates it causes. Constantly having to train new staff is costly, and disrupts team momentum and morale, resulting in the loss of skilled employees and a decline in overall team performance. It can also make it difficult to attract top talent, as word spreads about the controlling work environment.
Takeaway: Micromanagement leads to high staff turnover, costing your organization valuable talent and stability.
IMPACT 6: LACK OF AUTONOMY
Micromanagement strips employees of their autonomy, which is one of the basic human needs. This loss of autonomy creates a drop in motivation and can lead employees to do only the bare minimum. When employees feel they lack control over their work, they become disengaged and are unlikely to go beyond what is demanded of them. Conversely, granting autonomy empowers employees, fostering pride, engagement, and initiative in their work.
Takeaway: Lack of autonomy stifles employee growth and motivation, preventing them from taking ownership of their work.
IMPACT 7: LACK OF INNOVATION
One of the most significant dangers of micromanagement is the suppression of creativity and innovation. Your employees are closest to the work, and that means they often have incredibly valuable insights into your customers’ needs, potential innovations and products to meet those needs, and how to improve processes to make work more efficient. By micromanaging, you stifle their ability to innovate and take risks, which can halt progress and prevent good ideas from surfacing.
Takeaway: Micromanagement crushes innovation, hindering progress, and limits the potential for creative solutions.
IMPACT 8: THE BOTTOM LINE: Stifled creativity and innovation, low autonomy and trust, decreased productivity and inefficiencies, and high turnover due to micromanagement will directly affect your bottom line and can result in missed opportunities because employees may be hesitant to take initiative.
Takeaway: There’s a quantifiable measure of the impact of micromanagement: drop in revenue, innovation, efficiency, employee satisfaction and retention.
THE STRATEGIC SHIFT FOR HIGH-LEVEL LEADERS
As leaders advance in their careers, it becomes increasingly important to shift from a focus on day-to-day operations to a more strategic perspective. This transition is vital for several reasons:
Long-Term Vision: Higher-level leaders need to focus on the long-term goals and vision of the organization. This requires stepping back from the minutiae to see the bigger picture, and creating an inspiring connection between those big, bold goals and the workers who will help the company achieve them.
Empowering Teams: By stepping away from the details, leaders can empower their teams to take ownership and responsibility for their work. This fosters a culture of trust and autonomy – two elements of high-performing teams.
Innovative Thinking: Strategic leaders are better positioned to drive innovation and change, identify trends, anticipate challenges, and develop solutions that align with the organization’s goals. Micromanaging leaders are missing this strategic aspect of the role.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR OVERCOMING THE MICROMANAGEMENT INSTINCT
Now that you've identified your micromanagement tendencies, it's crucial to take proactive steps to shift towards a more empowering management style. Here are ten actionable recommendations, supplemented with insights from Gallup research and best practices:
Nurture Trusting Relationships: Building trust within your team is essential for fostering autonomy and productivity. Trust empowers employees to take ownership of their work and move projects forward without constant oversight. Providing constructive feedback reinforces this trust and encourages a growth-oriented mindset.
Perfect Isn’t Perfect: Acknowledge that perfectionism often drives micromanagement and inhibits innovation. Understand that there are multiple paths to success, and minor details are not always critical. Encourage experimentation and embrace failure (I prefer to call it ‘unintended results’) as opportunities for growth and learning.
Encourage Learning and Experimentation: Give your team the autonomy to experiment and innovate. Adopt a fail-forward mindset, where mistakes are viewed as valuable learning experiences. Provide guidance and support, intervening only when necessary to address recurring issues.
Set Expectations: Establish clear expectations for your team upfront, including project objectives, timelines, and success metrics. Clear communication reduces the need for micromanagement by ensuring everyone understands their roles, responsibilities, and deliverables.
Delegate Like a Boss: Effective delegation is crucial for empowering your team and freeing up your time for strategic priorities. Assign tasks based on individual strengths and development goals, providing necessary resources and authority. Remember, effective delegation generates higher revenue and boosts employee morale.
Stay In Your Leadership Lane: Prioritize tasks that leverage your unique skills and expertise, such as goal-setting and strategic planning. Delegate operational tasks to your team, allowing them to take ownership of their roles and contribute to organizational success. Ensure decisions are made at the right level, and push decision-making accountability down whenever possible.
Embrace Transparency: Utilize project management tools to monitor project progress without micromanaging. These tools provide visibility into individual tasks, enabling you to identify issues early and intervene as needed. Foster open communication about progress, challenges, and collaboration to build trust and accountability.
Hire Well: Invest in hiring the right people for your team. Hiring individuals with the right skills and qualifications minimizes the need for micromanagement and fosters a culture of autonomy and accountability. Take the time to understand each employee's preferences and strengths to tailor your management approach accordingly.
Seek Feedback from Your Team: Engage in open dialogue with your team to understand their preferred communication styles and preferences. Respect their opinions and perspectives and adjust your communication style to each individual. By actively listening to your team, you demonstrate trust and respect, and your commitment to growing strong relationships with each employee.
Practice Self-Compassion: Recognize that transitioning from micromanagement to a hands-off leadership style is a journey that requires patience and self-compassion. Be open to self-observation, to learning from mistakes, and to continuously improving your leadership skills. Cultivate a growth mindset and celebrate progress, both for yourself and your team.
COACHING PRACTICES TO OVERCOMING MICROMANAGEMENT
Reflective Journaling: Keep a journal to reflect on your management behaviors and identify patterns. Note situations where you felt the urge to micromanage and explore what was driving that urge. Look for themes. Explore how your micromanaging reflex is about you, rather than about your employees or the tasks.
Mindfulness Practices: Engage in mindfulness exercises to stay present when your micromanager becomes activated by the thought of relinquishing control. This can help reduce the anxiety you feel and allow you to dial down the need to overcontrol.
Accountability Partner: Work with a coach who can help you understand your motivations, and help you build the muscles to hold yourself accountable, by providing valuable perspectives, observations and objective feedback about your leadership approach.
Training and Development: Invest in leadership training programs that emphasize delegation, trust-building, and strategic thinking.
