Micromanagement is a form of relationship between the manager and the subordinates manifested in the way how things are performed at work. In the situation, the presence or absence of the manager impacts employees, both positively and negatively.
As an employee, do you want being told what to do at work? Or simply being controlled by your boss? As a manager, do you trust your subordinates to have control over things at work, like empower them to make decisions? Or you fear that they may fail in the process?
Micromanagement is a work environment created by various contexts, based on relationship, expectations, competence, output, etc. needed by the situation. It can be a better strategy to guide a person to be more efficient and achieve high performance. On the contrary, it can also affect the emotional and mental faculties of employees in a negative way.
What makes micromanagement good or bad depends on how it serves its purpose. Assessing its advantages and disadvantages depends according to how micromanagement functions within the organization. Some of them include the following:
Advantages of Micromanagement
- Builds employee confidence. Employees don’t want to commit error at work because it reflects their performance. Thus, the mere presence of the manager telling them exactly what to do and how to do it builds their confidence. In that way, there is assurance that any work performed, or any output delivered is within the standard set by the manager.
- Guides performance. The presence of the manager sends a strong message of support to employees performing the task. More so, with his presence, employees are more likely to receive timely feedback about their performance, both on how well they perform and on what they need to improve in the process. That kind of immediate feedback and guidance allows employees to see their daily improvement at work.
- Prevents possible failure. Inexperienced employees have higher tendency to fail when not guided properly. On the other hand, the manager cannot afford to allow their subordinates to make mistakes on their own. Thus, micromanagement allows the manager to monitor how his subordinates perform and guard them from potential mistakes, which is costly for the management.
- Establishes good relationship. Good relationship establishes positive team spirit at work – a good dynamics for cooperation, collaboration, and teamwork. When the manager and subordinates were able to sustain that relationship of trust and confidence, they become more open to proper delegation, sense of control, and empowerment.
- Increases employee performance. It is the role of the manager to assist their subordinates, who are consistently underperforming at work. The focus and attention of the manager, then, is to assist and help subordinates by identifying specific tasks and agree on procedures that will help them gain their momentum for high performance.
Disadvantages of Micromanagement
- Engenders low self-esteem. Learning new things and becoming better at what they do every day makes employees feel motivated. That sense of self-fulfillment and accomplishment, however, die-down when always being dictated what to do at work. What managers forget is that employees have the desire to become self-starting and self-directed people, and micromanagement runs contrary to the notion of autonomy at work.
- Dampens self-improvement and self-development. Empowerment is a psychological feeling that employees experience when allowed to perform their tasks according to what they believe is the best strategy to do it. Becoming self-directed, mastering and learning something new, creates an intrinsic feeling of self-worth. However, micromanagement defeats the purpose of empowerment.
- Stifles innovative and creative ideas. Managers are supposed to create conditions where people perform and give their best work. Stimulating challenges at work invite for innovative and creative ideas to come out. However, when managers fail to create that environment allowing people to make decisions and empower their actions, innovation and creativity falters and fly out of the room.
- Burdens the emotional and mental faculties of employees. Being commanded and controlled for what to do affects not only employees’ performance, but also their excitement and energy at work. Usually, employees feel stressed-out, draining not only their physical but also their emotional vigor that create a feeling of anxiety.
- Breeds job dissatisfaction. Employees feel lack of ownership when always being told what to do which eventually affects their satisfaction level. It is impossible for employees to thrive, develop, and perform to their optimum level when they lack control on what they do, despite the fact that they fully know what to do.
Striking a balance between when to step-in and when to step-out of the situation is the best way for managers and employees to learn from the situation. Too much command and control may affect the feelings and emotions of employees, while too much empowerment and autonomy at work may allow employees to be more lenient in what they do.
What managers should do to guard themselves from the pitfall of micromanagement is to be clear with their purpose, “Why am I doing this and for what purpose?”
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