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Micromanaging can be the unfortunate result of a series of issues that your boss may be experiencing. She could feel insecure about her role, unsure of your skill, or she could be confused about what her role is. In this post I’m going to focus on how to get perspective on your boss’ behavior in the case of her just not understanding her role.
I’m not excusing micromanaging. It’s one of the most destructive behaviors that a manager can have, but your micromanagers may not have bad intentions or be purposefully trying to degrade their team’s authority. And to be honest, people micromanage because they get something out of it—it’s just that that something has only superficial value. Micromanaging gets you information. Superficially, being in the know on everything and anything seems important and valuable. But it also gets you a cranky team and a quick path to burnout.
Some managers don’t understand that their role is not to:
know every detail about their department’s functioning or
know every employee’s job better than they do.
An underestimated nuance of a manager’s role is about learning how to not know everything. Instead of knowing everything, those parts of a manager’s brain should be replaced with knowing who knows each thing. Managers don’t need to have all the answers; they need to know who has each answer.
Getting some distance on micromanagers has helped me a) feel less annoyed with them all the time, and b) highlight opportunities for them to shift their focus away from my tasks and towards their own.
Managers who think they will only succeed if they know everything have often only been exposed to managers who think like this and model this. And this is why it’s so important to have a strong management training and role modeling within your organization. Contact me if you’re interested in talking through your organization’s management training.