Micro-Managers Beware

If a supervisor is micro-managing a project, they may get work product that looks exactly how they like it. However, they are receiving their preferences at their own peril.

It’s important to check work from those on a team you are heading up, particularly for new hires, but if you aren’t allowing members of your team to put their own spin on their work (again, assuming this “spin” is a valid way of completing the task and akin to a personal touch - I’m not saying to give inexperienced people the reins of your project!), you aren’t creating better staff. You are training a person (potentially a future collogue, with all the extra baggage that entails) to memorize what you like and don’t like.

Pictured: That feeling when you are micro-managed.

This is something that should terrify businesses. A person who doesn’t know WHY things are done a certain way will follow your steps every time - even when they shouldn’t. They’ll also require more help and resources down the line when they SHOULD know what is going on by now.

And what’s even more terrifying? Because these messed up documents will look exactly right to you (that’s what you have trained your team to do after all), YOU ARE MORE LIKELY TO MISS THESE MISTAKES TOO!

This is why diversity of ideas (and, honestly, just diversity in general) is so important. It isn’t just a gimmick to make people feel better about themselves or to sleep better at night. People who learn how to do things differently than you will catch things that you won’t catch.

So try to help your team members find a way to understand why you do things a certain way. Your business in the future will thank you.

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As an addendum, though micro-managing can be frustrating to deal with, it is a symptom of how you are being perceived (whether fair or not). It means that the supervisor believes that you need the instruction. If a supervisor simply refuses to see that you indeed bring value and that you do belong, that can be enormously frustrating and can cause people to leave. Of course, this is assuming you CAN in fact be trusted.