When it comes to leadership styles, there are few hard and fast rules. If you're paying attention and stay adaptable, you develop a style that suits your strengths and the needs of your team. That said, I do have one rule that I will brook no argument on. Micromanagement is never appropriate. No matter what the circumstance, situation, or once-in-a-lifetime event you find yourself in, micromanaging your team is never the right choice. Never. While this is true across all team sizes, it's especially true for small and mid-sized teams.
Before diving into all the terrible things that can happen when you take this approach, it strikes me that we should probably define what Micromanaging is because I suspect some people are habitual micromanagers and don't even know it. Merriam-Webster defines micromanage as: to manage especially with excessive control or attention to small matters that is not wanted or causes problems. It's that "not wanted" piece that's important, or as I would rephrase it "not wanted or needed." Leaders who are habitual micromanagers often don't see it. They think they're helping, giving needed guidance, making things run smoothly. For employees that are competent and confident in their job, this intrusion leads to terrible results. Now if you're having to manage people who do not have the right skills or knowledge to do their job, then I'd argue something went wrong long before you got to this point, and that's a discussion for another day.
From a truly selfish standpoint, one of the worst effects of micromanaging is that it increases the manager's workload. That's valuable time they could be using for something else. Seems obvious, right? Well, what's not so obvious is how long these effects last and how difficult they are to undo. Once you train people to come to you for every minute detail of their work, they will start to lose their independence out of fear they'll make a decision that upsets you. This will cause massive inefficiencies as you become the bottleneck.
And that brings us to the second downside. It's not just your time you're wasting. Everyone is slowed down. In a survey by Trinity Solutions, they found that 71% of employees said micromanagement interfered with their job performance. Additionally, an Accountemps/Robert Half survey of 450 employees found that 55% of those who had been micromanaged said it hurt their productivity. The irony is that more control leads to less output. The sad thing is that the detrimental effects of micromanaging have been well studied and understood for a long time, and still so many leaders find themselves falling into this trap.
But beyond just efficiency loss, you're also affecting morale. Unless you have the most patient team members imaginable, I guarantee your reports will start to resent you over time. Now the most calloused leaders among us might say, "I don't care if my employees like me as long as we get things done." Well, I'm here to tell you it doesn't work that way. There is a correlation between how much your team likes and respects your leadership style and the amount of effort they'll put into their work. I'm not saying they are going to actively sabotage you. Okay, I guess I am saying that can happen in rare situations. More likely, they will simply not go the extra mile for you and will start looking for ways to leave your team. This causes you to micromanage even more, and the vicious cycle never ends.
So, am I saying be completely hands off? Absolutely not. Just save your guidance for things that make a difference, like a security issue that could cost your company millions and not what background color to use for a table header. One obvious exception is new hires. These folks will need more supervision during the onboarding process, and I wouldn't consider that micromanaging.
Not everyone knows when they're micromanaging. Here are some warning signs to watch out for:
- You ask for constant updates on work that isn't done and isn't behind schedule
- You redo or rewrite work that was already acceptable
- You want to be copied on every email or included in every meeting
- You focus on how work gets done rather than whether it gets done well
Look for these warning signs. If you see them, step back and ask yourself if you are micromanaging.