What I find is that the problem cuts both ways. Of course it’s true that some supervisors become focused on responsibility, authority, and control right away – which makes for tons of problems for the supervisor and the workplace.

But I also see a portion of employees instinctively geared up to see the boss – any boss – as an adversary, if not an outright enemy. This emotional undercurrent is hard to prove sometimes, but it’s real.

My point always is that it’s up to the supervisor to ride out some of the early resistance, stay focused, and keep the big picture in mind. It seems obvious, but it gets lost in the day-to-day functioning.

Thanks for stopping by. Lissa.

Shaun

Micromanaging is one kind of problem, and passivity is the opposite problem. Many managers have been legitimately “burned” from taking either position. The key lesson is to not learn the “wrong” lesson by overreacting and swinging to the other side.

Every manager hears “help your employees succeed.” Of course it’s the right message, but what that means exactly in any given situation is precisely where the rubber hits the road.

Helping an employee is not charity, or social work, it’s a crucial managerial function embedded in the culture of a healthy workplace. Employees can feel it when it’s real. It pays huge dividends over time, plus – if it finally must happen – it makes having to end someone’s employment much cleaner and less painful all around.

Thanks again for commenting.

Shaun

Thanks for your article.

Parenting, of course, can SOMETIMES be like “managing” – but it’s also a world unto itself.

Micromanaging used to be an epithet, and I’m being slightly skeptical about how easily the phrase gets tossed around.

The point that is true, of course, is that there ARE control freaks, and people who assert dominance over others through their managerial status.

When added to the idea that good managers delegate to competent people, and that even micromanagers by “temperament” learn they have bigger fish to fry, it adds up to a workplace ethos generally opposed to micromanaging.

But you’re right, many employees need close supervision and attention to detail – until they get it right. That’s not a power trip, it’s not opression – it’s honesty about what reality requires.

Thanks for posting, Rick.

Shaun

I wanted to get to this a little more quickly than today, but getting our last off to school (the key word is “launch”) proved more difficult than anticipated. McGoldrick & Carter notwithstanding, neither Joanna nor I are experiencing “empty nest syndrome.” Did you ever see “Failure to Launch?”

Regarding manangement and micromanagement, managers are needed and so, darn it all, is a little micromanagement sometimes. The problem, of course, comes in when we confuse management, and even micromanatement, with leadership. The world is, I think, overrun with anxious micromanagers and, sadly, leadership deficient.

You’re right, however. The unwillingness to be competent demands micromanagement, and, sadly, vice versa.

By the way, I like your blog. Is a newsletter in somewhere in our future?

If they don’t get on top of their emotions, keep their concentration, and focus on the work, they can be sucked into the vortex, and join the general mess in so many workplaces.

It helps to talk about it.

Thanks for commenting, Pat.

Shaun