Do you evern wonder how to kill a team’s performance? Hire a micromanager!!!!!
Have you ever managed someone? Have you ever been managed by someone? I am sure you have. How was the experience?
Nobody wakes up and decides to be a micromanager. I wish they were never born. I met the first one, several years ago. It was quite fascinating and frightening at the same time. It started like this: “The buck stops with me thus I need to ensure all things are ok”. At first, I thought fair enough. Later on, it carried on. It kept increasing and clarity was missing. Honestly, it felt like I was suffocating. I did not know where my role starts and ends. Fear and worry became regular feelings. I did not trust to talk to others in the team. I could sense there was a similar feeling in my other teammates but no one dared to share more.
How did this come to happen? Was it my fault? I kept blaming myself. My self-talk daily went like this: “Elvira, because you are not good enough, your boss does not trust you to do a good job”. I saw that I could not perform well even the things, which I knew how to do well. I got convinced that I was a poor performer.
Micromanagement is the opposite of trust.
Harvard Business Review conducted a study to see the correlation between staff engagement and micromanagement. “Absenteeism caused by disengagement costs a typical 10,000-person company $600,000 a year in salary for days where no work was performed, and that “disengagement-driven turnover costs most sizable businesses millions every year.” It is obvious. The cost is high.
- Team performance goes down
- Fear increases in individuals and slowly creeps in the whole organizational culture
- Leadership trust is missing thus team lacks trust in leadership
- People growth is stagnating
- Control is the main factor impacting the workplace
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We could go on and on with several other traits of the micromanager.
Is there an escape for this?
How to deal with a micromanager?
- Define Micromanaging
- Find out what your boss wants to loosen his/her grip
- Examine your performance objectively
- Be honest & Face the challenge
- Communicate your needs and understand your boss’s needs
- Prove you don’t need micromanaging
- This is the stepping stone of your career progression
Being a Trusted manager can save a lot of trouble, money and it is far better than micromanaging. “Over time, I have come to this simple definition of leadership: Leadership is getting results in a way that inspires trust.” ~ Stephen M. R. Covey, The Speed of Trust