Every Breath You Take: The Mighty Micromanager

Looming over you like a detective with a magnifying glass, they watch your every move and count your every step. Lord help you if you are 30 seconds late for work or don’t conform precisely to their standards, because each time you fail to live up to their impossibly high expectations, you’re destined to find yourself on the business end of an irate interrogation. These so-called supervisors have a remarkable way of transforming from a relatively reasonable person into a lieutenant from the secret police, whose only aim is to treat you like a felon who has just been caught committing the crime of the century. Only in a workplace situation, it would seem that a criminal has more recourse than an employee who is trying to fend off an attack from an aggressive, domineering manager.

The micromanager is a little on the obsessive side. They excessively and uncompromisingly fixate on the petty details, completely derailing themselves from seeing the big picture. These middle to upper level managers feel it is their duty to know what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, and who you’re doing it with every single second of every single day. They have little or no respect for their employees, preferring to treat them like naughty children who need punishment if they step out of line. As a result, this boss generates needless stress and aggravation for those on the receiving end of their “leadership.” The most frustrating feature of the micromanager, however, is that they never seem to realize that their employees actually perform better when they are not present. But because this harsh task master believes only they know best, they fail to see how their approach interferes with results by causing unnecessary problems.

Micromanaging serves no useful purpose other than to satisfy the manager’s need for control. Most of the time, this need stems from their deep-rooted feelings of anxiety and insecurity. This boss is probably under intense scrutiny from his or her superiors and could be trying too hard to please, believing that over-involvement in front-line operations is the only way to ensure that things stay on track. This form of micromanaging most often occurs when the boss has been hired to clean up a “mess” left by his or her predecessor. In this situation, the manager’s heart might be in the right place and they are not deliberately trying to hurt anyone, the problem is that they are too wound up in their own neuroses to recognize that they are losing the plot, taking the idea of “involvement” too far to be effective.

Alternatively, some micromanagers have a very narcissistic personality style and dysfunctional belief system which gives them a sense of impunity and entitlement. These kinds of bosses tend to be extremely self-absorbed and presumptuous. Managing from a rigid, hard-line mentality, this boss must dominate his/her subordinates and be “right” at all times and at all costs. These managers have extreme difficulty accommodating or tolerating individuality in the workplace, instantly assuming that employees performing tasks uniquely are employees doing them “wrong.” Innovation, creativity, and flexibility are foreign concepts to them – uniformity and blind obedience are all they know and understand. Good luck trying to communicate with this boss about how their management style affects your morale and ability to do your job. They do not want to hear your opinion, they just want you to do as your told.

So what can you do when you report to a micromanager? Most of the time, the natural response involves fight or flight: either you get defensive and combative with them (fight), or you invest a lot of energy in trying to be invisible, avoiding interactions with them as much as possible (flight). Unfortunately, neither of these strategies work very well over the long run, especially the fight response. Why doesn’t this work? Because it threatens the micromanager’s sense of control, and when you threaten their sense of control, you can be certain that they will react by tightening the screws even more. While avoidance can therefore seem like the preferable way to go, a true micromanager will eventually put you under surveillance just waiting for you to slip up. When this occurs, you will not be able to escape their radar no matter how inconspicuous you try to be. In fact, the more you try to hide from them, chances are the more adamantly they will pursue you. So to prepare yourself for an inevitable brush with a micromanager, the following are some tips and suggestions for handling them that can save you from additional grief and frustration:

1.      Practice the fine art of disagreeing without arguing: Avoid getting into an “I’m right/You’re wrong” contest with them; it won’t work and you won’t win. Instead, try approaching conversations with your boss from a position where you are both right. For example, try saying: “I understand you’re point and you’re right. Here’s how I see that issue a little differently.” By presenting your input in a way that doesn’t represent a threat to their control, you stay one step ahead and establish an agreeable tone to your conversations. The key is to work with the micromanager’s need to be in charge instead of against it. Once your boss realizes you aren’t attacking him or questioning his authority, you may be surprised to find him relaxing a little and becoming more open to your ideas. You can always revisit an issue or make a suggestion for changing things you dislike, but by initially showing your boss that you can play along, any proposals you introduce later will stand a better chance at success. In other words, laying a cooperative foundation with your supervisor means you can probably anticipate a more receptive audience when you approach them with your ideas and feedback (as opposed to the one you can expect if you defy their direction and continually argue with them).

2.      Shift from microscopic to panoramic: Clarify priorities by emphasizing the values and goals of the company you work for. By highlighting how your work supports the larger objectives of the organization, not only do you make yourself a difficult target for further micromanagement, but this can help to nudge your manager’s attention away from the inconsequential and towards the bigger picture. At the end of the day, as long as you are meeting production targets and working towards the bottom-line goals of the organization, your work performance surely falls into the acceptable category. If your boss struggles to grasp that reality, perhaps it says more about them than it does about you.

3.      Communicate, communicate, communicate: Underscore your strengths and inform your manager of the positive results you’re getting. This strategy can help to increase your boss’s faith in you as an employee, while also redirecting their tendency to magnify the negatives. Also, consider keeping your boss in the loop about projects you are working on, especially making sure to notify them of any potential problems that might arise. Micromanagers like to feel like they are on top of operations and prepared for trouble at a moment’s notice; they hate to be blindsided by sudden unforeseen difficulties and tend to react irrationally by attacking employees whenever this happens.

Keeping with the theme of communication, emphasize how having a positive and professional relationship with your boss is important to you. Ask your boss what they need from you to make this happen, and inform your boss what you need from them to build a successful relationship as well (such as trusting you to do your job). At the end of the day, the more a micromanager feels they can rely on you, the less they will be inclined to monitor your every step.

Working for a micromanager need not be the endless nightmare it has the potential to be. The key is to focus on priorities so you can enjoy professional, non-confrontational conversations with your manager about expectations and directions. That way, you will be able to work around their compulsive nit-picking without feeling so suffocated. If you are doing your job and giving your boss the impression you are not there to cause them difficulty, trust that they will eventually go away and find someone else to micromanage. That is, unless your boss becomes unreasonable and begins to abuse his/her authority by bullying or harassing you. Should your boss begin to venture into this territory, consider gathering other workers together who are having the same problem and raising your collective concerns with senior or upper management. Remember, there is safety in numbers. Your manager will have a very difficult time trying to say your complaint is just a “personality conflict” between you two if a group of employees are raising the same concerns. Then, you can breath a sigh of relief knowing that the responsibility for correcting your manager’s problem performance has returned to where it belongs – back to their boss and away from you.

Stay tuned for next month’s issue: