Micromanagement And Its Consequences

Micromanagement, a word that reverberates with anxiety and frustration, is in reality a management style — a style that emerges from the depths of distrust, suffusing workplaces with excessive control, stifling autonomy, and snuffing out creativity. It often stems from a desire for control, but its consequences can be detrimental. Thus, it is necessary to peel back the layers of micromanagement, uncovering its root causes, understanding its effects, and exploring strategies to mitigate its harmful influence.

Sanjeevani Saikia: Hello listeners, welcome to another episode of the Vantage Influencers Podcast, where we explore a wide range of HR topics designed to grab your attention and inspire you. I'm your host, Sanjeevani Saikia, and today we'll be having a conversation on micromanagement and its consequences. And for that, I have with me Summer Davies, Founder & Principal, LeaderShop by Summer Davies. Hi Summer!

Summer Davies: Hey, good morning!

Sanjeevani Saikia: Good morning. First of all, I'd like to wholeheartedly thank you for giving your invaluable time and joining us in today's episode. Before we dive deeper into today's topic, micromanagement and its consequences, could you kindly walk us through your corporate journey so far?

Summer Davies: Sure, my backstory is a little unique — although the longer I'm in HR, the more I find most people end up here through unusual or unique experiences. Very few people start their career thinking they'll end up in HR, particularly in this section of it, and that's certainly true for me. My background is actually totally different — I have a degree in animal science, I thought I was going to breed horses. So I went to university studying horses, and through some crazy turns of events, that's not what happened — I ended up working at a veterinary hospital in my early 20s. I didn't know it at the time, but the hospital was owned by a large organization with several different arms, and because of that, I ended up in the corporate world. There's a lot more to that story, but that's how I got there.

I ended up in leadership development because in that early role, in my 20s, I was asked to lead a team — a really big team of professional veterinarians. I had absolutely no training, no experience, and really no business leading a team, and it was a rugged experience — certainly for me, and absolutely for the people who worked for me, because I was figuring it out on my own. Once I went and found some resources on my own — well-researched, effective leadership techniques — everything started to change. It was a huge lightbulb moment for me: this is really cool, and it's really impactful for people's lives. So I went back to school, got my master's in organizational development and leadership development, and spent the next 15 years working in a variety of global roles, supporting leaders across a number of organizations — from very frontline leaders all the way up to the C-suite — trying to understand what it takes to be an effective leader, how we grow those skill sets, and most importantly, what to actually focus on, since there's such a sea of exciting things in this space. That's a brief history of me.

Sanjeevani Saikia: You've narrated your journey beautifully, and it's really interesting. So Summer, today we'll be discussing micromanagement and its consequences. To get us started, could you define micromanagement — in your experience and expertise, what do you think it actually is?

Summer Davies: This is such a good question, because we use the term "micromanagement" to cover a variety of sins, and sometimes it's used appropriately, sometimes it's not. In my experience, micromanagement is when a leader provides an excess of direction to somebody who doesn't need it. That could look like someone who insists on tasks being completed in a specific way and isn't open to different ways of completing it, or someone who insists on being deeply involved in the details of a task or project when the person doing it doesn't need that level of involvement. I call out that distinction because there are absolutely occasions when you do need a leader to provide a lot of direction or be very involved in the details — micromanagement becomes a harmful behavior specifically when it's applied to somebody who doesn't need, or doesn't want, that level of direction or involvement.

Often, micromanagement comes from an individual who was promoted based on technical competence. Very often in organizations, we promote someone because they're the best at their function — if you're an accountant, you might be promoted to lead the team of accountants because you were the best on that team. There's a disconnect in many organizations, assuming technical proficiency will somehow translate into leadership skill — and that's such an injustice, because those two skills are often not correlated at all. So that individual ends up overusing their technical skill to compensate for a lack of leadership skill.

Sanjeevani Saikia: Do you think micromanagement actually stems from a lack of trust — is that the primary reason people start micromanaging?

Summer Davies: In some cases it is a lack of trust, but I don't think it's always the way we assume. We tend to think the individual doesn't trust their team, but when I start working with leaders and peeling back the layers, they might say, "Gosh, I don't trust my team, so I need to see every detail or be involved in every step" — but when we get a little deeper, it's actually that they don't trust their own ability to delegate a task effectively. So the lack of trust stems from a lack of self-trust, and that can bleed into a lack of trust in their team, which creates a whole host of other issues. But often it's really a lack of self-belief that they can effectively delegate a task and still get the work done. The other important piece is a lack of clarity around how they now add value as a leader — they were very clear on how they added value as an individual contributor, and if they were able to drive results that way, it felt like value-add. They haven't yet clarified how they add value as a leader, and haven't changed their behaviors to align with that new definition of value.

Sanjeevani Saikia: That was really well said. As many of our listeners may have experienced or observed, micromanagers often display certain behaviors. Could you shed light on some of the common signs or behaviors exhibited by micromanagers — red flags that employees and even managers should watch out for in their own leadership style or in others?

Summer Davies: I'm pretty confident everyone has either had somebody lead them with a micromanaging style, or at least observed it — most of us can spot it when we see it. But a couple of things I look at when working with a leader to understand their style: how often do they ask questions versus tell? If you're delegating a task, what percentage of your words and sentences are "telling" someone what to do and how to do it, versus asking the individual questions to understand how much they already know, or what their own ideas are for completing the task? The second thing I often have people do is open their calendar and look at where their time actually goes. If they're spending a tremendous amount of time in every meeting, reviewing every email, reviewing every document, that can be an indicator of micromanagement — not foolproof, but an indicator. Versus someone whose calendar is focused more on checking in and developing their people. When the calendar shifts toward developing people rather than managing tasks, that's when I start to see the shift away from micromanagement toward a more appropriate leadership style.

Sanjeevani Saikia: When we shift our focus to the impact of micromanagement on employees, we often hear about the negative effects on morale, motivation, and overall job satisfaction. Could you enlighten us on the specific impact micromanagement has in these areas?

Summer Davies: Oh my goodness — I often say micromanagement is the number one killer of productivity and innovation. What happens, a lot of the time, is somebody joins your team or organization, and usually they're really excited — if you're starting a new role, a new organization, you're jazzed to be there. They've probably gone through a round of interviews, told friends and family "I'm starting this new job, I'm so excited," and they arrive on day one with genuine energy, ideas, and enthusiasm. From that moment, a leader can either continue to foster and grow that, or not. With a micromanaging leader, they tend toward the latter — that energy the employee brought in starts to decline, because when they bring up a new idea, maybe it doesn't get listened to, or they hear the worst sentence in business: "Well, we don't do things that way here," or "We've always done it this way." As soon as that starts happening, the individual psychologically loses some of their safety, and they slowly stop bringing up new ideas — that's exactly where innovation starts to disappear, because someone doesn't feel psychologically safe sharing a new idea, even one that might not work perfectly.

Similarly, when someone is micromanaged — always told, "you must do this task, and the steps absolutely have to look like one, two, three, four, five, and not only that, I'm going to check every single step" — that communicates "I don't trust you." If there wasn't an incident that caused a legitimate lack of trust, you erode psychological safety and effectively teach that person: yes, we hired you, yes, we thought you were smart, but we don't actually think you're that smart, so we're going to check every step. And you watch engagement, enthusiasm, productivity, and innovation slowly erode. There's some genuinely scary data on this — a Gallup study found only 23% of people report being engaged in their work every day, meaning they feel they can be innovative and enthusiastic at work. That means a huge chunk of people don't feel that way, and for organizations, that should be an emergency-level signal about their most important asset. A lot of the time, that's because managers, due to a lack of skill, micromanage away that energy and that innovation.

Sanjeevani Saikia: As we explore the complexities of micromanagement, we'd like to consider a different perspective — while it's widely acknowledged that micromanagement has multiple negative implications, are there any positive aspects that could arise in certain situations? In your experience or research, have you come across instances where micromanagement had constructive outcomes?

Summer Davies: Absolutely, and this is a really important way to look at this behavior. If we peel back the label of "micromanagement" and look at the behavior underneath, it's just a high level of direction and involvement from a manager. It becomes micromanagement, as I said, when it's misapplied — applied to a situation where it isn't needed or appropriate. But take that exact same behavior — a high level of direction and involvement — and apply it to someone who's brand new to a task, or a task that's incredibly complex and genuinely needs that level of support, and it can be really helpful and important. It's up to the manager to assess the situation: who's completing the task, what is the task, and how much direction or involvement do they actually need — and can I ask questions to understand how much they think they need, so I can adjust my approach accordingly? In situations where that level of direction is genuinely needed — someone brand new, still learning — that behavior is really appreciated, and in its absence, you'd actually see negative consequences, like someone excited about a brand-new task but with no idea how to do it, left without the direction they needed.

So it really comes down to looking behind the label of micromanagement to the actual behavior, and asking whether you're applying that level of direction and support appropriately, given the individual and the task. That sounds simple to say, but adjusting it for every individual on every task becomes a real skill — one that requires training and practice for managers to get right. The ones who can appropriately assess the individual, the task, and the needed level of direction and support are the ones who become really effective and engaging managers.

Sanjeevani Saikia: One of our listeners, an HR professional, wanted me to ask this — are there any red flags employees should watch out for during the hiring process to identify potential micromanagers?

Summer Davies: Yes, this can be tricky, because we're all pretty good at showing up the way we want to during a hiring process and then showing up as ourselves once we're in the role. But I come back to assessing how a manager articulates how they add value. If I'm evaluating someone and want to know whether they take the time to really consider individuals and flex their style to meet their needs, I might ask something like, "Describe how you think you add value as a manager, and how do you organize your time to align with that value?" If someone can answer clearly — "I add value by understanding the developmental needs of the people on my team, and I spend most of my time supporting them based on those unique needs" — I know I've got a manager who gets it. If they can't articulate how they add value, or how they organize their time around that, that's where I start to see potential red flags.

Sanjeevani Saikia: We're arriving at the end of today's episode, but before we let you go, there's one last thing both our listeners and I would love your take on. Creating a work culture that fosters trust, autonomy, and empowerment is crucial for organizations striving to minimize micromanagement. What proactive steps can organizations take to cultivate that kind of culture? Any specific strategies or initiatives you'd recommend to discourage micromanagement and encourage a more collaborative, empowering environment?

Summer Davies: Every organization I've ever spoken to says they want a collaborative, empowering environment — nobody says they want people dragging through their day. The reason people keep saying they want that is because it's genuinely hard to achieve, and it's important to acknowledge it as a lofty but important goal. The best thing organizations can do is lean into how they develop their people leaders, especially early on. Most individuals wait a very long time to receive any formal leadership development — some organizations do this well, but the average is 19 years before someone receives any formal leadership development, and that means some people wait an entire career and never receive any development as a leader. If I were going to recommend one thing to organizations, it's to lean into leadership development earlier — get skill development to your frontline and middle managers as quickly as possible, because that's where engagement goes to die, on the front lines and in the middle of your organization. Get those leaders skilled up as fast as you can, and even if you can't roll out a huge, robust program, just get them something — even something as simple as helping them define how they now add value will go a long way toward driving an engaged, collaborative workforce.

Sanjeevani Saikia: That was very well said, Summer. We've reached the end of today's podcast — do you have any message for our listeners? And how can our audience stay in touch with you beyond this episode?

Summer Davies: For sure — first of all, I have a micromanager assessment on my website, completely free to download, and you're welcome to share it with anyone. Go to leader-shop.com to grab it — it's a great place to go if you want to help someone understand whether they're a micromanager, or if you fear you might be one and want a totally safe assessment to figure that out. LinkedIn is also a great place to find me, and if you're thinking, "gosh, I really wish I could get some skills development to my people, but I'm not sure where to start," book some time with me — I'm happy to talk through some easy solutions I offer, like ready-to-go workshops or even a full coaching program for leaders. You don't have to roll it out to every leader in your organization — if you've just got a few, or one group you're excited to start with, I can absolutely help with that.

Sanjeevani Saikia: Wonderful, Summer. It's been a pleasure to have you as our guest today. Your insights and expertise have been invaluable, and we're grateful for the time you've taken to share your knowledge with our listeners. Thank you so much, thanks a lot.

Summer Davies: Thank you so much for having me.