Early in my career, I worked for a person who was the very dictionary definition of micromanagement. It was so bad working for them they actually gave me heart palpitations for months. Because of that experience, I swore I would never become a micromanager. Until about ten years ago…

I was in a leadership position in a politically impossible environment. Things had to be done and said in just the right way, otherwise the persnickety customer we were supporting could end our contract. So, I genuinely wanted to keep the customer happy and my team employed.

With the best of intentions, I decided to filter all of our team’s documents by correcting and tweaking all of my team’s work before it went to the customer. While I thought I was protecting everyone’s interests, this kind of micromanagement ended up hurting my team. In fact, one of my senior consultants left the company, and in the exit interview, my name was the one he cited as his reason for leaving.

As a micromanager, the message I was sending, either directly and indirectly, was the following:

Confession 1 – “I’m insecure.” I’m in a situation where I’m not confident. I don’t know how to be my authentic self, I don’t feel that I can speak the truth to my management or my customer because I don’t think they can hear it. My cognitive dissonance of who I want to be and who I think I should be for this situation makes me unsure of what to do. I don’t want to expose my lack of knowledge, my lack of skill, or look weak in front of you, so the best I’ve come up with is to try to control this situation.

Confession 2 – “I’m afraid.” I don’t want to look bad. I don’t want you to look bad either, but there are so many things that can go wrong. Our project might come in behind schedule, or it might not be as good as the customer hopes. I don’t want to look like I don’t know what I’m doing, and I need to know everything about everything because someone will ask me about it. I’m already feeling insecure about what I don’t know or have in skill or confidence, but now I’m responsible for making this situation successful. I feel a lot of pressure to meet that expectation, and all I terrorize about is everything that can go wrong, so I will do everything in my power to prevent any negative outcome from happening.

Confession 3 – “I need control.” Something went tragically wrong in my personal or professional life. I wasn’t in control of that situation, and yet I bore all of the impact of that. (Or) I have a situation in my life currently that is way out of control. I’ve been burned before. One bitten twice shy. I will never allow that to happen again. I need to be in control this time so that everything will be alright as a result.

Confession 4 – “I don’t trust you.” It’s not personal, I just I haven’t worked with you long enough to know that it will get done when, and to the exact standard, I think it should be done. I need your help getting over that. I believe that I know what’s best, because I see more than you do, and I just need you to trust me on this. This will probably make you feel inferior, that was never my intent, but it’s my neck on the line, and like you, I just want to do a good job too.

After my employee quit, I decided to simply trust the professionalism of my team, and let go of the outcomes whatever they may be. Remember, I was not typically a micromanager. I was always much more easy-going, but when the stakes were higher, or I was in unfamiliar territory, I felt like I had no option. But having lived it, I realized two things – (1) that a good leader has to be able to adjust to their circumstances, and refine their leadership style to have close and tight accountability, while not alienating their team – when it’s needed; and (2) I became much more understanding and forgiving of all the micromanagers I’ve ever worked for, and that empathy taught me how to manage them.

To be continued…

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