Marissa was frustrated. As district manager of a large retail chain, she was responsible for ten stores. Her district was doing well, meeting sales goals and store operations were generally smooth.
The problem was that her boss, the regional manager, was a micromanager. Every time an issue arose, her boss was right in the mix with his sleeves rolled up. Marissa ended up spending as much time responding to her boss as she did addressing the issue. It was time consuming, and affected her self-confidence and her team’s confidence in her.
My assessment revealed it wasn’t just Marissa who was being micromanaged. Her boss treated all of the district managers the same way. What’s more, almost all the regional managers were micromanagers, basically doing the job of the people who reported to them. They were regional managers in title only.
So who was doing the job of the regional managers? No one. There was a gap and a huge missed opportunity for senior leaders to be thinking strategically about the market and how to grow the business.
The head of stores, who was busy filling in the gap left by the regional managers, didn’t understand what the regional managers could be doing that kept them so busy.
Why would someone work hard to be promoted and then keep doing their old job?
It’s easy to assume the problem lay with individuals – that the managers weren’t willing to delegate for personal reasons. And indeed, many managers do struggle with delegating for personal reasons.
5 Reasons You Might Be a Micromanager and Not Willing to Delegate
- It’s easier and faster to do it yourself.
- Your direct report might not do it right.
- Their mistakes might affect your reputation.
- You might be seen as dispensable.
- Your old job was more interesting and fun.
But the reasons for being a micromanager are not always personal.
When an issue is pervasive throughout company, it is a mistake to think the issue is simply a matter of personal style.
In this case, the company was primarily operationally focused, and most leaders spent their time immersed in the details of work at the level below them.
5 Different Reasons You Might Be a Micromanager and Not Willing to Delegate
- That’s the way things are done in this company. Your boss is micromanaging you.
- The company has not clarified exactly what is expected of each role.
- There is no opportunity to come together with your peers to think together about the future.
- No management training is provided on when to delegate and when and how to intervene.
- The company is operationally focused, no one is thinking strategically.
Because the regional managers were so busy micromanaging the people who reported to them, they were missing important work they could have been doing as regional managers – thinking together strategically about how to support the company, to consider what was happening in the market place, trends in customer needs, and how they could build their team.
We called this phenomenon being “bunched up on the ladder” – where in reality two levels were doing the work of the same rung, and no one was doing the work of the rung above. To resolve this issue, instead of simply sending the managers to a training program, we instituted a change initiative to “unbunch the ladder,” which involved a four prong approach:
- Clarifying the expectations of senior managers for the responsibilities of each job position.
- Training in good management practices, including when to manage closely, when to provide coaching, and when to delegate.
- Senior leaders stop being micromanagers and model the kind of management they expected from other managers.
- Gathering leaders for conversation about where the company is going and how to get there.
Thank you for sharing your insight on this. Micromanaging and managing versus leading are HUGE issues that not everyone knows how to address.
Thanks Ashley. According to Situational Leadership, your management style should vary according to the needs of your direct report. Sometimes supervising closely is exactly what’s needed, and in that case, it’s not experienced as micromanaging.
Thanks, Jesse. This issue is one of the most frequent that I’ve encountered. It’s critical that senior managers model both good delegation – and require that their teams deliver the kind of strategic thinking that the organization requires. Including top level operational leaders in some of those events is important for demonstrating what the next level of leadership reqires.
Great points, Betsy. When senior leaders micromanage, it sets the standard for what leadership looks like throughout the company.
Terrific insights and reminders with wide application! Thank you Jesse.
So glad you found it helpful. Great to hear from you, David
Thanks Jesse.
When a manager suffers from the “I can do it better and faster” disease they are failing to develop others. People sometimes keep doing their old job because they can’t do the new one…a remedy with some teeth is to make sure managers know that a good chunk (25%) of their job as a manager is to lead which I like to think of as innovating in the area of process improvement.
Providing clarity on what it means to lead would go a long way! Thanks for your insights, Stewart.
Thanks for sharing. Great insights for leaders at all levels.
Thanks, Jim. Indeed. What starts at the top trickles down to all levels.
When my son was moved into management, he hated it. Indeed- a promotion but it took him away from the work her really like. So– what did he do: started micromanaging the people he was to supervise because in reality, he wanted their job… his old job back. It will be an enlightened company that can create career incentives and pay based not on band width but rather on the work that is done. Todd left that company. A shame really because his skill was critical. But a growing family and finances demanded a “promotion”.
Great story and example with your son! And thanks for demonstrating the strong link to last week’s post on how organizations need to change all aspects of how they incentivize, train and compensate employees in the face of today’s “social contract.” Much thanks for sharing your wisdom, Eileen.
Thanks Jesse for the insightful article.
Its indeed difficult to delegate. In fact early in my career, this was one of the first challenges that I had faced. It’s easier to do a task oneself than to train another.
Later I started enjoying training so much that I took it up as a profession.
Yes, at times it is an organizational problem, which leadership look to resolve through change management trainings or motivational workshops as a immediate remedy for their problem.
Nowadays we almost always do a discovery phase to understand the root cause of the problem and not just the symptoms, before we design any intervention. The focus is on validating if the organization has focused on developing a variable EVP
A wrote a short article on EVP that may be relevant
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/employee-value-proposition-evp-omar-pervez-pmp
Thanks for sharing your insights and your article, Omar. The role of HR is key to creating an attractive EVP. You might find my previous article: Career Mobility Forces Organizations of the Future to Transform relevant to this conversation.
very effective and understandable