Are You Micromanaging? What To Know and How To Stop

Micromanagement.

The word sends a chill down the spine of every employee working under a supervisor. And that’s a lot of us.

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), four in 10 US workers feel like they’re being micromanaged at work.

Maybe it used to be your job, and you did it well. Maybe you have a new employee who hasn’t proven themselves yet. Maybe it’s an important project, and you’re worried about what’ll happen to the company and your career if it’s not a success. Or maybe your boss is micromanaging you, demanding information you can’t provide without intruding on your team’s daily work. Whatever your justification, anxiety lives somewhere at its heart—the fear that without your input, the job won’t be done right.

What you might not realize is that telling your employees how to do their jobs is actually causing their performance to plummet and leading to increased stress and tension. APA’s research also found that 64% of people who say they feel stressed or tense during work also claim to be micromanaged.

If you think you may be a micromanager, read on to learn more about the signs of micromanagement and how to stop it.

Signs Of Micromanagement

Are you a micromanager, or are you being supervised by one? If you’re not sure, consider this list and check off those that apply:

• No one seems grateful for the manager’s very constructive input.
• The department has higher than average turnover.
• The manager “owns” all the top projects and attends all the meetings for the other ones.
• The manager is swamped with low-priority tasks they don’t trust anyone else to handle.
• The manager is frustrated by the way their employees do their work as well as the results.
• Most projects go through multiple edits or revisions before the manager is satisfied.
• Nothing gets delivered until the manager has approved it.
• The manager doesn’t take a vacation, or is still checking in during their vacation.
• The manager wants to be cc’d on every email or other communication.
• The manager may delegate, but also dictates how those tasks must be carried out.

This isn’t a comprehensive list, but if you saw your behavior or your manager’s reflected in two or more of the above examples, you might be one or dealing with a micromanager.

Does Micromanaging Work?

The short answer is no. Micromanagement breeds a sense of distrust in employees, sometimes resulting in resentment towards management and increases in turnover.

While micromanagers may believe they’re being supportive and helpful, the behavior can come across as condescending. Plus, if you micromanage your team, it puts too much on your plate, too.

Micromanaging achieves the short-sighted goal of having things done your way (albeit with a colossal amount of effort) at the expense of a smoothly running machine that can be trusted to operate on its own.

Trust is like oil for your department’s engine; without it, the internal parts grind and clatter, creating friction, stress, and an unsafe level of heat. Even the most well-designed parts will eventually fail under these conditions.

5 Negative Effects of Micromanagement

Micromanaging can happen even with good intentions—you want your team to be successful and you want your business to thrive. But it often has the opposite effect.

At the heart of it, micromanagement tells your people, I don’t believe in you, so I’ll do it myself. In the day-to-day, this means your team isn’t learning, growing, and improving on the skills needed to do the job (because you’re doing it for them); in the big picture, micromanagement stifles fresh ideas, increases turnover, and more.

1. Micromanagement Can Poison Work Relationships

Ideally, your employees will look to you as a mentor—someone helping them become a better person, and a better employee. You want them to trust your leadership, your experience, and your advice. But micromanaging can make your team miserable.

2. Micromanagement Destroys Autonomy

As a manager, your role is to empower your teams to do great work. If you’re actually doing their work for them, your people aren’t going to be empowered. Because micromanagement stifles employee development and growth, it can also have a negative impact on satisfaction and engagement. In fact, one of the best ways to increase employee engagement is to focus on building teamwork.

3. Micromanagement Causes High Turnover

Effective leadership enables your employees to take pride in and enjoy their work, but a difficult manager-employee relationship can make work unbearable. If the relationship is poor enough and the stress high enough, your employees will seek new employment. In fact, having a “bad manager” is a top reason good employees leave their jobs. No one wants to work their whole life away under a Scrooge, and that’s how micromanaged employees view their managers, especially if they’re also overworked.

4. Micromanagement Stifles New Ideas

Your team brings a wealth of talents and experience, and if you’re micromanaging, you aren’t using any of it. What’s more, if you’re the only one supplying ideas, you’re robbing the company of potential innovation that could lead to increased profits and improved work environments.

5. Micromanaging Creates Stress for the Manager

Chronic micromanagement can mean you’ll spend inordinate amounts of time and resources hiring and training new employees, only to have to replace them. There’s a reason delegation exists: you’re not superhuman. If the company thought you could do all the work yourself, they wouldn’t have bothered hiring anyone to help you. You have a team because you need one.

How To Stop Micromanaging

So, you’ve taken a good, long look in the mirror, and decided you might be micromanaging. What now?

The good news is that you can turn things around at any point. You can turn dependent employees into self-sufficient rock stars. You can (and should) empower your employees. You can learn to delegate and in doing so, reduce your stress and the workload on your plate.

Here are some ideas you can call on when the urge to micromanage strikes:

• Trust your employees. Trust goes both ways, but the first step is to give a little back to your team. Empower them to make decisions without running everything by you. Allow them to lead on a project or just take a step back and avoid checking in too often.
• Reward proactivity. If your team has been micromanaged, they may feel like they don’t have the ability or permission to be proactive. Recognize employees for their great work, initiative, and collaboration.
• Delegate responsibility. One of the biggest tells of a micromanager is their workload. Relinquish some of this and let your team support you. If you’re really concerned about the work getting done the right way, lean in to employee training or tools like standard operating procedures (SOPs), and let your employees learn at their own pace.
• Ask for advice (and use it). You hired your team because of their skills and experience, right? Then use it. Seek advice from those who work with you and follow it where needed.
• Encourage contribution. Give your employees a voice and allow them to use it by contributing to meetings and events.
• Accept alternative methods. As a micromanager, you’ve probably only accepted processes and ways of doing things that you deem right. Give others the chance to propose new ways of doing things, you may just find a more efficient way.

Micromanagers, It’s Time to Change

Change is hard, we know. But cutting out the micromanaging will be beneficial for everyone—including you!

With patience and a little practice, you can help your employees form a self-sufficient team that comes to you for your direction and guidance when needed. They will run more efficiently, be more loyal, and work harder. Treat your employees with respect, and they will reward you with performance.