The Dangers of Micromanagement

If you’re a manager of any kind, you may be sitting in a place of leadership with the task of drawing new levels of success out of others and building a winning team. This is going to excite or scare you, maybe even both. You are looking for innovative and creative ways to help them excel but what you don’t want to do is fall into the trap of micromanagement.

First, let’s start by defining micromanagement. It is a management style where a manager closely observes or controls the work of subordinates or employees. Micromanagement generally has a negative connotation and can feel much like smothering to the employee. Three big dangers of micromanagement are; loss of trust, dependent employees and your own burnout.

Loss of Trust

Trust is imperative to success in any relationship. The professional setting is not outside of that boundary. In order for you to build a cohesive, winning team they must trust you, be close enough to feel the passion of your vision but far enough away to grow in their own gifts and talents.

By micromanaging them, you will dwindle their self-confidence, plant seeds of frustration instead of encouragement, and show them that you don’t trust them to do their job. You hired them, they have the skills, and you need to give them the tools for success. Then, let them feel the joy of accomplishment as they work their way to achieving their task.

Dependent Employees

Micromanaging also forms dependent employees. Your staff will start to depend on you for every task, every decision, and you will lose productivity, growth, and efficiency. The full-spectrum rainbow of ideas that pours out of a group of people striving for a common goal will be lost.

The goal of a leader should be to rise up other leaders, build their team’s confidence, get more accomplished, and reach new heights. These are all things that will become impossible if your team is fully dependant on you for every task or project completion.

Getting Burned Out

The clearest yet highly overlooked dangers of micromanaging is your own burnout. Let’s start with the basics. If the vision that burns so brightly in your mind takes 25 people to bring it to life and an array of talent, then it is clear that by attaching yourself to every facet of the operation will divide your energy 25 times. This is not possible to withstand, you will be burning the wick at both ends. Remember you are the leader and as you begin to fizzle out, you are also stomping the flame of all of those beneath you.

Loss of trust, dependent employees, and your own burnout are three very real and common results of micromanaging. Micromanagement is bad for your employees, it destroys the talent within your team and it can take a terrible toll on your physical and mental health.

Take time to step back, breathe, and get excited about rich soil that you have to produce amazing things from. Also, realize that your team can handle their tasks without you micromanaging them. Feel confident in the tools, example, and training that you have provided and let them shine!