No matter your role or position in an organization, you may have experienced being micromanaged at one point or another. We all know it’s never fun to feel like you’re being micromanaged, but it’s also very common. 42% of employees reported feeling micromanaged at work in a recent study on well-being in the workplace. You may get the strong sense that your supervisor / manager / boss doesn’t believe you can really do your job, or doesn’t trust you to do it without constant supervision. You may feel unfairly scrutinized, corrected — like you’re just on their radar constantly.
Since I’m in the position of being able to mentor and coach up-and-coming talent, I thought I’d start sharing more wisdom. I’ve found that issues often come in waves — one month I field questions about compensation, another it’s about management styles. Micromanaging can be subtle, or it can be obvious. Here are four common complaints:
- Instead of delegating work to you, your supervisor / manager assigns it and then hovers over the entire process.
- Your supervisor or manager pays attention to tiny details and seems to blow them way out of proportion.
- They are constantly nitpicking on every aspect of what you do, from your communication style to the way you prioritize tasks.
- They require constant updates, often at seemingly random intervals — just “checking in” on a project without warning.
Micromanaging is complicated
Being micromanaged can make you feel inadequate, untrusted, frustrated, and disengaged. It may make you want to confront the person doing the micromanaging and just tell them to stop. 64% of employees who felt they were micromanaged experienced more stress and tension during the course of their workday.
But here’s the truth: micromanaging isn’t that simple. Depending on your role or how long you’ve been with your organization, you may not be as up to speed as you think you are. There may be more reasons than you know for certain details being so important. The bottom line is this: Handle the situation with care, and don’t view the micromanager as your enemy.
Try these 5 strategies:
1. Step back and figure out if you’re really dealing with a micromanager. Managing isn’t easy. There are managers who underdo it as well: in their efforts to build trust and autonomy, they’re not giving their direct reports enough feedback, and in effect, setting their team up to fail.
There are also times when the task at hand is simply too difficult to pull off without a lot of supervision and correction. You may be just one piece of a very big puzzle. Again, it’s all about understanding the larger context of your organization. And if you are really dealing with a micromanager, the more you know, the better you can advocate for yourself.
2. Don’t disengage. Quiet quitting, radio silence, not putting in one more minute on the clock — it can be tempting to stop working so hard when your efforts and time seem to go unrecognized. Resist. Instead, apply some of your smarts and energy towards understanding the situation first.
As you do, keep doing your job to the best of your abilities. If you directly report to someone who seems to notice everything, disengaging in your work may just trigger more micromanagement.
3. Don’t blame the micromanager. More on the big picture: The person doing the micromanaging may know a lot more than you do. They may be in a position where they have to carefully control an outcome with a whole lot of moving parts. While you may be creating work product that they truly appreciate, there’s a long process of review, changes, and others’ expectations that happens down the line. The more you know about the big picture, the less you’ll feel singled out.
Ask about the workflow and process, ask about the overall objectives, ask about where you fit in terms of having an impact on the outcome. Your purported micromanager may be relieved, and may give you a bit more room when they see your perspective.
4. Don’t let your resentment build up. If you’re getting frustrated, ask for a meeting. Keep it productive and tone down the emotions. If you can both discuss your concerns, that can open up a conversation and build trust.
Speak candidly but respectfully. Ask for more specific criteria, guidelines, and an open line to check in and make sure you’re on the right track. Evaluate what you can reasonably request: If they’re on you about accounting for your time every ten minutes, it may be reasonable to ask why — and then ask for a bit more time between check-ins so you can keep your workflow going. Small adjustments can have a big impact.
5. Do celebrate the positives. Feeling micromanaged is noisy: you may get into the habit of anticipating the reactions and feedback, and seeing them all as negatives. You may come to mistrust an actual compliment as just a way to soften the next critique.
If you can, ask your superior to make sure to point out those positives. You can say you’ve been feeling a bit discouraged and could use some good news. Most managers will understand, and will make an effort to ensure you understand the value of what you’re doing. They’ll work harder to make it clear they value you as well. So see each interaction and point of feedback as a chance to grow. You’re not just growing your skills, you’re also growing your ability to deal with potentially tricky situations. And believe me, that’s a skill you want to have.
Do you love your job?
Every organization is different, but it’s rare indeed to be able to work autonomously and have everything you do accepted as is. It’s just as rare to have a manager who hardly “manages” you. Avoid, if you can, giving into resentment and clamming up. It may also be that our ability to access each other via digital channels has increased those taps on the shoulder a bit too much. Sometimes managers and supervisors are simply so busy they don’t realize. Often, that’s not a style so much as a reflection of the pressure they’re under.
Overall, your challenge is this: be willing to reframe your perception of being micromanaged as just being part of a much larger process. At the same time, try to focus on why you feel micromanaged. Learn as much as you can. See it as an opportunity to grow. While perceptions of micromanagement are a factor in turnover, ask yourself: is it really worth it to leave a job you love at this point, given its other merits? Should you stick it out, try to make it better, and learn all you can in the meantime, adding more skills and experience to your career?
And what if you don’t love your job, or you don’t love the work culture that enables this kind of managing? I’m just tucking in this bit of wisdom: sometimes there are work cultures that let micromanagement go on unchecked, or put the managers under so much pressure themselves that they have to micromanage to ensure they’re hitting all those targets. In that case, time to do some thinking. Are you in a position to jump ship and look for a situation that doesn’t leave you as rattled? Take your time and look for the best fit if that’s the case. Be practical, but be true to yourself. Only you know the best answer.
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