Let’s be clear. If you are a micromanager, you don’t know it.
Your subordinates or direct reports do, or your family does. But to you, the checking on people and high attention to detail is something you feel compelled to do. Or you believe that if you don’t do it, the forces of entropy and chaos will descend on your workplace or home. How often have you heard someone say, “If you want something done right, do it yourself!” But that approach couldn’t be more wrong, for all kinds of reasons.
People who micromanage are not managers at all. They are not delegating and coordinating but seek control as the action to ensure order. Whether the driving force is a need for control or to reduce your uncertainty and seek greater order, the result is the same. As one extremely high-ranking admiral once explained to a classroom full of Master of Business Administration students a few years ago, “Zero defects means zero innovation.” Perfectionism chases out adaptation and innovation. It also imposes conformity in how people work, not just what is expected as the result of their work.
So, how do you discover if you are a micromanager? Here’s a checklist:
- Do people avoid you?
- Have people told you, whether a friend, work colleague or spouse/partner, that you are over-controlling?
- Have you ever been formally diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder?
- Do you correct people often?
- Do you feel that you need to control events, people and processes for them to be effective?
- Have you been more active than others around you?
If this is you, rest assured, you can be saved. First, eat more fiber. Seriously, focus on output, not how it’s done. Of course, if the nature of the work is highly regulated, like running a nuclear power plant, or the work has disastrous results if not done properly, then some micromanagement may be appropriate. But even here, it has a cost in how much others get a chance to do the work, improve and show their talent. Micromanagement costs your organization the motivation of the people around you.
Another hint to overcoming a dysfunctional micromanagement style is to focus on the relationships, not tasks or output. Again, the nature of the work may affect whether this is an option.
But be careful. If you have micromanagement tendencies, you will always see the need for your overbearing, overcontrolling and bullying behavior. ●
Richard E. Boyatzis is Distinguished University Professor, Professor, Organizational Behavior, Psychology, and Cognitive Science at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management
