No manager will easily claim to be a micro-manager. A micro-manager likes to snoop on every task of his subordinates. It is his nature not to allow others to act freely for his own satisfaction.
But the most common reason employees cite for leaving a job is working for a micro-managing boss.
Maybe you\’re a micro-manager, too. But you still don\’t understand it. Unbeknownst to you, colleagues may be spending the day unhappy with your approach, thus reducing their productivity.
To understand whether you are a micro-manager or not, consider the following questions and points. Give yourself a mark if it matches you, then add the numbers at the end to see where you stand.
- Just waiting for your approval—is that list of office tasks just getting longer? That means your colleagues have learned by now that they need your approval for every small decision.
- Do you have handwritten notes on every document that comes into your office room? That means, nothing seems perfect to you. You want to give your opinion on how to improve in each area.
- Whenever your colleagues go to meetings with important people from other offices, you want to accompany them every time.
- You instruct your subordinates to forward most of their official emails to you or CC you there. Your email inbox is often filled with office mail.
- Almost every day requires you to be in the office for long hours, even on holidays. Besides, you don\’t take vacations. That means you don\’t believe that anyone else can do your job as well as you.
- You often have to redo every task you let colleagues do. Because you don\’t like their work.
- You don\’t get any time to develop new strategies. Because you have to put a lot of effort behind small daily tasks. Maybe your last performance review suggested that you lack strategic thinking.
- You think of yourself as smarter and wiser than everyone else in the office, because you think they \”don\’t understand\” many things that you understand very easily. You are obliged to teach them every work by hand, even though you feel bored doing this work.
- Even if you give someone the responsibility of something, it is seen that you take more time to explain to them exactly \”how\” to do the work instead of telling them \”what\” to do.
- Before the meeting you organize another small meeting. So that all your colleagues are ready for the upcoming meeting.
- You have to keep the specific procedure and progress report of each work on paper.
- You have almost every colleague\’s phone number and Facebook account. Outside of work, you have a habit of looking for work by sending them messages.
- Colleagues have to submit weekly and monthly progress reports to you.
- After the meeting, you organize a \’post-mortem\’ meeting to review all the decisions taken there. You have to question every decision of yourself and others.
- It\’s not uncommon for your employees to come to you with new ideas. Because you have the exclusive right to share new ideas.
- You never allow anyone else to attend meetings on your behalf.
- You need to know what all your colleagues are doing when. So you have other people\’s official calendars and schedules in your collection.
- The turnover rate of employees under you is high Their engagement score in office work is also quite poor. Besides, the colleagues who work very well, they move to other jobs when they get the opportunity.
Now, do the math. If your number is 10 or more, then you are definitely a micro-manager. That means you don\’t have enough trust in your colleagues. If you don\’t start working on this problem now, your professional life will soon become stressful. Your chances of getting promoted to higher positions will also decrease. And if your number is between 5 and 9, you may have become a temporary micro-manager. Or you can gradually become a full-fledged micro-manager Maybe your team has increased the number of new members, so you have to adopt these methods to manage everything. So try to come out of these characteristics with initiative from now. Keep on changing the nature one by one, you will see that it starts working. On the other hand, if your number is between 1 and 4, congratulate yourself. You don\’t tend to micro-manage very much. You can still ask team members for feedback on your work style. Share your problems with other managers you know. Even if you can eliminate these two or three habits, your career will have a positive impact.
