Have you ever worked in an environment where your every move was under constant surveillance? That feeling usually comes from a micromanager. I spent 33 years managing teams in the computer industry, and I’ve worked both for and alongside micromanagers. I’ve also seen the damage they leave behind: talented people who stop trying, teams that can’t function without approval for the smallest decision, and organizations that grind to a halt because one person can’t let go. The job of a manager is to guide and support a team, not to control every action. Micromanagers miss this entirely.
What Does Micromanagement Look Like?
Micromanagement runs deeper than excessive involvement. It’s a pattern of control that strips team members of their autonomy and reduces them from thinkers to task executors, and I watched it happen for decades. For more, see tips for new managers from 33 years of experience and time management for writers who also have a day job.
Constantly checking up on team members. The micromanager needs to know what everyone is doing at all times and will correct even the smallest detail without hesitation. They hover. A good manager hires and trains people who are intelligent and motivated enough to do their jobs. There’s virtually never a need to treat people like robots.
Control can reach past your own team, too. A development manager I worked with, back when I was the production manager, kept trying to manage across departments. She got to the point where she thought she had authority over me, even though I was her peer. She burned out. Eventually she left corporate work altogether and took up teaching.
Demanding to be part of every meeting. Micromanagers insist on attending every meeting, no matter how unimportant, so they can control what happens.
You can count on a barrage of comments, questions, and orders on the most trivial subjects. Better managers understand that their team members know what they’re doing and allow them to work without constant oversight.
Scheduling excessive meetings to “know what’s going on.”
The micromanager attends every meeting and schedules more meetings on top of those. The weekly status meeting where the entire team reports what they’re doing is the hallmark of micromanagement. Good managers communicate well enough with their teams that they already know what’s happening. When they do hold meetings, the purpose is to share information downward.
Inviting everyone to every meeting. Micromanagers usually don’t know who needs to be in a room, so they invite everyone. Good managers limit meetings to people who have contributions to make or need the information.
Refusing to delegate authority. The micromanager will pretend to delegate but never does. This is the CEO who still orders office supplies, the CIO who must approve every expenditure no matter how small, the supervisor who insists on signing off on every change. The groups managed by these people can never seem to get anything done, and nobody is surprised. Good managers delegate authority and then trust the person they delegated to. If you hire an office manager, let the office manager stock the supply cabinet.
Refusing to delegate tasks. A manager’s job is to get other people to do work. Managers are like orchestra conductors. They don’t play the instruments. They get others to play properly and in harmony. When a manager takes over tasks that belong to their team, they’re not managing. They’re preventing their team from doing their jobs.
Approving every expenditure personally. Some micromanagers require personal approval for five-dollar purchases.
The clever ones ask for “reports” of all expenditures but will tear someone apart the moment anything unexpected appears. Good managers create a system of spending authorities and limits. As long as spending falls within the guidelines, team members spend without needing approval.
Doing the work instead of managing. Managers who regularly perform tasks instead of overseeing them haven’t delegated effectively. They’re not doing their own job, and they’re not letting other people do theirs.
The hardest lesson for people promoted from individual contributor roles is that their job changed. They’re no longer doers. They’re the people who get the right things done by the right people at the right time. See the full Leadership Hub for related guides.
Micromanagers usually don’t know who needs to be in a room, so they invite everyone.
Controlling all hiring and firing decisions. The micromanager who has “delegated authority” for an area but refuses to let supervisors make hiring decisions effectively guts that supervisor’s authority in front of the entire team. When everyone sees that the supervisor can’t hire or fire without the boss’s personal involvement, it undermines the supervisor’s authority. People learn they can challenge the supervisor, ignore them, and make them irrelevant. Good managers delegate hiring and firing authority. It’s fine to interview the final candidate for a critical position. It’s not fine to personally vet every decision.
I’ve been on both sides of this. I’ve micromanaged, and it was usually because the person I was managing wasn’t doing the job and we were in a crisis. I’d step in and tell them what to do, or do it for them, and sometimes I sat behind them and guided them command by command. They hated it, and I knew they hated it.
A couple of them asked me why I was micromanaging them. I told them it was because they weren’t doing their damn job. They knew that would come up on their review, so they got the message fast. Fine, they’d do the job, boss. Good. If you don’t want me micromanaging you, do your damn job.
I’ve also worked for a boss who was a micromanager some of the time. On most things I could do just about anything I wanted. On others he wanted to know everything: how much research I’d done, whether I’d talked to these people, whether I’d taken the vendor to lunch, whether I’d looked at competitive costs. I think he just didn’t have enough to do.
| Habit | What the micromanager does | What good managers do |
|---|---|---|
| Constant checking up | Hovers and corrects even the smallest detail | Hire and train capable people, then let them work |
| Attending every meeting | Insists on being in every meeting to control it | Let team members work without constant oversight |
| Excessive meetings | Adds meetings, like the weekly status report, to know what’s going on | Communicate well enough to already know; use meetings to share information downward |
| Inviting everyone | Doesn’t know who needs to be there, so invites everyone | Limit meetings to people who contribute or need the information |
| Refusing to delegate authority | Pretends to delegate but approves everything | Delegate authority and trust the person you gave it to |
| Doing the team’s tasks | Takes over work that belongs to the team | Conduct the orchestra; don’t play the instruments |
| Approving every expenditure | Requires personal approval for five-dollar purchases | Set spending authorities and limits |
| Controlling hiring and firing | Vets every decision, undercutting supervisors | Delegate hiring; interview only the final candidate for critical roles |
What Damage Does Micromanagement Do?
It kills initiative: people stop making decisions, stop raising problems early, and the best of them leave.
From the podcast
Shawn Abeling watched this from the installer side and describes what it does to the people below it, on Leaders and Their Stories:
They see you sitting around, not really doing much at all. It doesn’t really do well with morale, and it really doesn’t make them want to work.The damage runs both directions. Watching too closely and doing nothing at all read the same way from below.
Micromanagement destroys morale. When employees are under constant surveillance, they stop believing their work is good enough. Motivation drops. Performance follows. It breeds distrust. When the manager scrutinizes everything, team members become defensive instead of collaborative. The work environment turns hostile. It kills growth. When a manager takes over tasks and doesn’t allow the team to learn from mistakes, nobody develops. The team stays exactly as capable as they were the day the company hired them. That means they’re less capable every year the industry moves forward without them.
Google’s engineers had a long history of doubting that managers were worth much, so the company decided to test the question. Project Oxygen, a multiyear research effort, went through exit interviews, employee satisfaction surveys, performance reviews and interviews with its highest and lowest rated managers to learn whether managers mattered at all and what the good ones did differently.
They mattered. One of the eight behaviors on Google’s list of what its best managers do was that the manager “empowers the team and does not micromanage.” According to Harvard Business Review, teams with high-scoring managers saw less turnover, and retention tracked manager quality more closely than seniority, performance, tenure or promotions. People with better bosses also reported more satisfaction in several areas, including career development and work-life balance.
It amuses me that a company run by data people needed a formal study to confirm what every hovered-over employee already knew. Good people leave micromanagers, and Google had the numbers to prove it.
My take
Micromanagers drive off good people, and Google needed a formal study to prove what every employee with a boss hovering already knew. If you manage people, hire competent ones and let them work. Watch less and let them make mistakes they can learn from. Teams that never get to fail never grow. If you work for a micromanager, call it what it is, a pattern of control you can deal with.
How Do You Handle a Micromanager?
Build trust through transparency. Proactively share updates on your work, your progress, and your challenges. When a micromanager doesn’t have to ask, they feel less need to hover.
Set expectations early. At the start of any project, communicate your understanding of the goals, your plan, and your timeline. Get agreement upfront. This creates a structure that reduces the need for constant check-ins.
Demonstrate competence consistently. Deliver quality work on time. Take initiative. Propose solutions instead of waiting for direction. Over time, reliable performance shifts the dynamic from surveillance to trust. Ask for feedback directly. When you invite feedback, you give the micromanager an outlet for their need to be involved without letting them take over the process. Ask specific questions about your work instead of waiting for them to find things to correct. Have the conversation. If you have a relationship with your manager that allows it, address the pattern directly. Be specific about situations where the micromanagement slowed the work or hurt the outcome. Propose alternatives.
Some micromanagers don’t realize what they’re doing. If none of this works and the environment is affecting your health and career, you may need to move. Not every dynamic can be fixed from the subordinate’s position. For more on dealing with difficult workplace dynamics, see My Boss Is Insane and The Ethical Workplace.
Start with transparency and clear expectations, escalate to a direct conversation, and move on if nothing changes.
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My Boss is Insane covers the micromanager and eight other kinds of bad boss. I wrote it from 33 years in corporate America so you know you’re not the only one.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management, Harvard Business Review
- Google Is Expanding Its List of What it Takes to Be a Great Manager, Nextgov/FCW (via Quartz)
