S4 E52 The Micromanager

Your boss isn’t reading your work, they’re rearranging it. If you’ve ever hit “send” on a document and watched your manager obsess over fonts, demand to be copied on everything, or ping you by email, chat, phone, and then show up at your door, you already know how micromanagement can hijack your focus and your confidence.

We dig into what micromanagement actually is (and what it isn’t), the most common red flags, and why it’s so exhausting. We also get honest about the psychology behind controlling leadership: anxiety, a need to look like the expert, low tolerance for ambiguity, and the fear of being judged from above. Sometimes a micromanager clamps down because they don’t fully understand the work, and your capability makes them feel exposed.

Then we move into a practical playbook you can use immediately. We walk through how to define success for your job so you can protect your “why,” how to make your manager define success for each task so you stop living in the “bring me the rock” loop, and how over-communicating with consistent updates can buy you breathing room. We also share a strategic move that sounds counterintuitive but works: giving your micromanager a specific lane of involvement so they feel informed without taking over.

Grab our micromanager toolkit at yourbosssucks.com, and if this hit home, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can stop letting a bad boss suck the life out of them. What’s the clearest sign your boss is micromanaging you? 

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Recognize the pattern. Protect your peace. Plan your next move.

And remember: don’t let your boss suck the life out of you.

Transcript

Why Micromanagers Drain Teams

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Have you ever had a manager who, as soon as you finished a document, they couldn't look at the content. They were, I don't know, changing the font sizes or doing something very particular to the work without even expecting the content. Or perhaps you're in service and your manager is consistently hounding you about a job that you've known how to do for, I don't know, 10, 15 years. If this sounds familiar and if it's anyway triggering, I'm probably talking to you. And today we're getting into the mind of your bad boss, the micromanager. Stay tuned. Hey folks, welcome to So Your Boss Sucks Now What? I'm your host, Natalie Parker, and today we're talking all about micromanagers. First, I hope you all love the theme song. I'm super excited about it. We've had it for months and happy to release it for this season. And if you need to listen to the entire thing, check out our websites. You can have it. It's totally a bop, as far as I'm concerned. Do the kids still say bop? I don't know. Anyway, listen, we're talking about micromanagers. And we made this the first episode because, according to statistics, uh, Robert Half talks about the fact, the company Robert Half says that 59% of people in the workforce have experienced a micromanager. It's more than half. More than half of people in the workforce have had somebody breathing down their neck trying to get stuff done or wanting to check in on them or whatever they're doing. And that makes me think something we're doing something wrong. We're doing something very wrong. Now, those of us who are in the leadership development space, we do this every day. We're still working on the managers. But if this is your first time listening to this show, we're here to help you, the person in the workforce trying to navigate the crazy. Most people have had a bad boss. Many people in the workforce, at least 85% of them, are disengaged for some reason. I'd venture to say, based on the 60% of us who've had a bad manager, specifically a micromanager, here's probably the reason. That's probably the reason why. So you're listening to this because you need help navigating the bad boss. Your company's gonna try to do whatever they do if they do anything at all. Most managers have not had manager training, but if they have, they still need help. And so we're gonna help you help yourself as you help your manager. Okay.

Signs You Are Being Micromanaged

SPEAKER_00 2:53

I first want to address, you know, what it takes to recognize a micromanager. There are several signs that you can all be aware of. And it might be helpful first for us to define what micromanagement is, right? Because words matter. According to the Internet of Things, right? So that's Webster's, that's Wikipedia. Micromanaging is controlling a situation or person with excessive or unwanted attention to minor details. Now, note this says excessive. All right. So it has to be like, not because they asked you how you're doing today. Let's not be so fragile. Not because they are checking up on a deadline that you're late for. It has to be excessive, unwanted, unnecessary. Okay. A micromanager typically attempts to control either the person or an outcome. They insert themselves to something they already have delegated or should have delegated to you. And now they're coming back trying to reclaim or get insight or even help you along with the thing they gave you. Typical characteristics of a micromanager isn't someone who just does regular check-ins with low pressure, no pressure. This is someone who has potentially a high propensity of anxiety. Their anxiety rubs off on you. They want to be copied on everything in an email. They um over-correct for small minor things. They often believe that their visibility equals productivity and may even offer to help. And it's not helpful. A lot of the behaviors that we feel farm our bad leaders is easy to take it personally. One of my favorite books is The Four Agreements, and it talks about how not to take things personally. So that's step one. Don't take it personal. It's not you, it's them, unless it is you. We're gonna talk about that in a minute because sometimes some of us out there are less than, shall I say, accountable with our work, which means people have to check up on you. I'll talk to y'all in a minute because this episode isn't for you, but I'm gonna save some space just for you so that I can help you make sure you stay out of the triggering zone that creates the behavior of micromanagement in the first place. Okay. But for those of you who are not those people who actually do do your job, come to work on time, have a level of both mastery and understanding of your job, I'm talking to you. Micromanaging behaviors are everything from requiring multiple approvals on things that are non-necessary. Like, all right, so if you're in hospitality and you make the bed and your manager wants to see every bed you make, that's too much, right? It's not necessary. Um, if uh they hover over you while you're doing something. I knew a leader once that um they would send me an email, then they would send me an instant message, then they would call me, and if I didn't answer, then they would show up at my door. No lie, like within minutes of each other. Why do I know this? Because I would be on conference calls and I'd get the email, then the instant message ping, then the phone call, and then you're at my door like 30 minutes later. And I'm thinking somebody's dying or something's on fire. Nope, you just wanted an answer immediately. Very productive. Great use of your time, sir. They give direction to the point where it's so granular that you have no like room for creativity, your own input, your own autonomy. They struggle to delegate tasks. They may give you something and then take it back, like, nah, I got it. Um, and they don't like uncertainty. They want to know the very specifics of everything you're gonna do before you do it. These are some common characteristics of a micromanager. And it happens a lot. More often than not, micromanagers want to control. And so people who have controlling behaviors, who don't like to trust others. Gallup, the research organization, will say that that most micromanaging activity is control. And I don't enough, they will say it's a lack of trust. I don't disagree with that, but I would say more than a lack of trust, it's a lack, it's a desire to control. And maybe it's a desire to control because they don't trust. Whatever it is, it typically makes all of us feel like exhausted. You may feel like you're crazy. You may feel like you are unnecessary because the boss is giving you so much direction that you don't even get to use your brain. It's literally just um, you're an automaton, if you will. You're just doing the thing they ask you to do, like, okay, I'm just gonna shut up in color and go home. It's very demotivating. And the studies will tell you that many, many people feel that, you know, when they have a micromanager, that they don't have room to do their job. They feel exhausted. It really does suck the life out of you. Hence, so your boss sucks. Now what? And so I want to really dig deep in this because many of us have dealt with this before.

Why Micromanagers Need Control

SPEAKER_00 8:28

All right, so let's dig into the psychology around micromanagement. Like I said, it's some of it's a fear of control. Um, another part of it is tied to, which I think is a byproduct of a fear of control, is wanting to be the expert in the room. I remember being hired by a company because I had a deep background in both HR and organizational development. And I was hired to design programs and frameworks for the organization to implement. And the leader that I reported to at the time consistently, consistently questioned, push back on like normative things, like things that are widely accepted in my field of study. Right. And it was exhausting because I would end up like trying to educate, which that leader didn't appreciate. And I could appreciate, like, I could, I can understand, like, okay, I don't want to look like I don't want to say better than her. It was it was having to educate while still feeling like the leader, allowing the leader to be the leader without her realizing that she was not fully aware that she didn't know. So that was always fun. I've got the expertise, you don't. I need to educate you on why we're taking this approach. You don't want to hear it because you think you know better. Fun times. Um, it was always fun. Um sometimes these leaders have a low um tolerance of stress or ambiguity. And so if they don't understand, it drives them to be more controlling and pushing you into a corner that they can manage. I will tell you, so sh so to all of you who have a high level of expertise, a high level of intellect, all of the things, you may often find yourself under a micromanager, not because you're smart and not because they're dumb, but because their level of capacity to understand is smaller than yours. Without getting technical, Elliot Jacks is the father of organizational hierarchy. And he talks about this thing called stratified organizational theory. And the idea is this is that each level of organization has a level of thought process. So you think of the military, a soldier has, you know, work in, work out. You do the, you do the orders, you come back and get more orders. Where the higher you get in the organization, the more capacity, the more decision-making, the more latitude you have. Some of us are in lower level of positions, but have a higher capacity than our managers. And that creates micromanagement. Because if the leader is not secure, if the leader is fragile, if the leader has any level of desire to control, it will come down harder on you because they don't understand it. I'm gonna say it again. Sometimes you have micromanaging leaders because you're smarter than your leader, and that makes them feel bad. Full stop. I'm sorry. Yeah, it's hard. And so these are the things that trigger, you know, that that create the psyche of a bad as as a as a micromanaging boss. It's fragility, it's control, it's sometimes lack of understanding. Sometimes it's sometimes it's the leader who has achieved a level of success and does not want to be embarrassed or taken advantage of. So they're going to make sure that they show up good. And managing you and controlling what you do is a reflection on them. Hopefully, this is some of this is sounding familiar to you. These are some of the things that you see. Right.

When It Is You And Stress

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Now, I want to take a parenthetical pause right now and talk to my people who don't do their job. If you are a person who does not do your job, who does not come to work on time, who is not accountable, who has errors in your work, who may not know what you're doing, no harm for the most part, in terms of like being there. If you are sober about where you are and you're working towards better, I'm happy for you. But if you over here are being triggered by micromanagement because you have not showed up to the plate doing your job, I don't have a lot of empathy for you. I'm sad for you, but do your job. Because some of the micromanaging is required because you're not showing up accountable. I define accountability as a reconciliation of your words and actions over time. Meaning, do you do what you say when you're going to do it? Do you do, do you do, do you do what you say you're going to do when you're going to do it consistently? And if that's not you, then you don't get to complain about your bad boss. Not yet. They may still be bad, but I'm gonna need you to do better to take the bad that you have and bring it to the table off the equation. Because I promise you, if the company were to ever evaluate it, they're going to get rid of you before they get better of your bad boss. Facts. All right. Now that we've kind of gotten that off the table, uh, I do want to say something. I think this is the funniest thing. I came across a song because I believe that music is the psychology of our culture, right? You can tell where the culture is by their music. And there's a group called Tongue Bunny. You guys should listen to the song. It's hilarious. Tongue Bunny wrote a song called Hyper Hyper Villigent Micromanager. You can find it on Apple and Spotify and all the other things. And I was just looking to see like, has everybody written a song about bad managers before, specifically micromanagers for this episode? And the lyrics to the song are hilarious. The one of the the beginning lyrics are you've got eyes like lasers, heart like a scanner, clocking every move like you're some kind of manager, red ink dripping from your holy hands while your deadlines die. I'm your biggest fan. Your desk is a war zone, files in flames, but you're chasing ghosts in your hallways, hallway game, zoom in, trying to find a crack while the floor falls from underneath your paper stack. Somebody has had an experience with a micromanager. Y'all go listen to the song. It's hilarious. I don't know who um tongue buddy is. I couldn't find a lot of information on them, but shout out to the lyrics of the song are hilarious. And I think it captures what we feel. When you have a micromanager, you feel stressed, you feel exhausted, you feel anxiety, just the anxiety of seeing the email from hearing their voice to knowing that they want to meet with you. It is stressful. And it gets you to the point where eventually you will first feel crazy and then you will feel resolved that you're just gonna do whatever they ask you to do. You will resolve to what I've heard said, just to be shut up and color. I'm just gonna do what you asked me to do, get my paycheck, go home. And it's an easy way to be because micromanagers are draining. They suck the life out of you. But I think I have a better way for you if you just bear

A Practical Playbook For Autonomy

SPEAKER_00 15:53

with me. The first thing I need you to do is I need you to take a minute and breathe. Recognize that if you are doing your job, you do have mastery, and you're not causing all sorts of um team dynamic problems, stressing people out. If, you know, if you can really clearly with a clear conscience and the cooperation of other people in your team that it's not you, take a beat, take a breath, and appreciate that it's not you. Then decide not to take it personally. All right. From there, once you decide that, I first want you to, I then want you to identify what success looks like for this job. Not for the task that you're given for the day, for the job. Are you there to get a skill? Are you there to get a check? Are you there to get the the insurance? I don't care what it is. Define why you're there for now. You can be anywhere else later, but define why you're there now. That is your why. Keep a hold of your why. Stay there and hold that just for a minute. Keep that always in front of your face. That's your motivation. Is it the checks so you can pay your bills? Is it the insurance? Whatever it is, remind yourself why you're there so that when things hit the fan, you can remember I can endure this because I have a why bigger than this attitude that this person is giving to me. All right, that's the first thing. Now, when the micromanager gives you a task, I want you to make them define what success looks like. When we're coaching or facilitating, we tell people that a lot of managers will give you the bring me the rock exercise. The bring me the rock exercise is, you know, there's a sensei, and he's giving his students an exercise. He says, I want you to bring me a rock. And the students run out and they bring them a rock. And he says, Oh, that rock is too big. They run away and they go bring a rock. Hey, oh, that rock is too small. All right, and they run it and they get another rock. Oh, that rock is too green. They go get another rock. Oh, that rock isn't blue enough. And until you know, fifth or sixth time, one student says, Well, what kind of rock are you looking for? And the sensei explains, I want a three-centimeter rock that is shiny, pearlescent, and blue. It's easy to think that you know what the rock is, and you may know what the rock is, but maybe your manager doesn't. And so I strongly, strongly, strongly, strongly suggest that before you start any task, make your leader define what success looks like. All right, you want me to do this report? What does that look like? Who is it going to? What is it for? How many pages? What are the words I need to use? What will it be used for? What does success look like when I'm done? And how many times do I need to check in with you before before this is over? What part would you like to have in this? Make them tell you. Use whatever AI of your choice to give you 10 good questions before you start the task. Why? Because a lot of managers do not know what they want when they ask you for it. Things no one will ever tell you. Oh, I want to, I don't know, just make them tell you what a success looks like. You define success for the job, make them defess for the task. Okay. Next, I want you to over, and I do mean over-communicate. Micromanagers fear not having control. I have had enough micromanagers to get to the habit where while I was in my corporate spaces, I would send weekly activity reports to all of my managers. And sometimes I had more than one manager at the same time. Everybody got a activity report on the projects or activities I was doing so that no one could say they didn't know what Natalie was working on. One, it was record for me. And two, it was record for them so that I could recall to them what I had already told them if they hadn't read it. If they hadn't read it, it was their business, not mine. But I over-communicated and I made sure that it was in a framework that they could see. Same label, same name, same, same thing every week, giving them a status update. It seems arduous and for the normal person it will be, but it gave me breathing room to do what I needed to do so that they could check that report, see what was missing, and say, Oh, well, you forgot that. Okay, well, thank you very much. So you're gonna first not take it personally, you're gonna define success in the job, then you're going to make them define success, and then you're gonna over-communicate. The next thing you're gonna do is is gonna sound interesting, but I believe it's important. I want you to give your manager some business. What do you mean give him some business? I believe that if the devil can't make you bad, he'll make you busy. I had I heard a leader say that to me once, and I thought it was a brilliant thing. When your leaders are micromanaging, it's because they sometimes they want to be value added, but they don't know how to be. So your girl right here, I cannot spell to save my life. I have a degree in English literature. I speak for a living. I believe I am articulate to some degree. However, if it were between me and my family and a spelling bee, y'all, I'll see y'all on the other side. Poor little out for the homies that ain't there because I can't spell, right? So, what I would do for my micromanagers is I would actually give them assignment. I would say, I'm almost done this task. Especially if I was like worried about them, you know, dismantling my very well researched approach or framework or what have you. I would give them specific involvement on how I wanted them to review the work.

unknown 21:59

So

SPEAKER_00 22:00

If you've got that leader who is, you know, can't read your writing because the fonts are in different sizes. Or if you have that leader who, you know, wants things a certain way, fine, deal with that. But specifically say, like, hey, listen, the fonts are done, they are not done yet. I have not finished formatting. So address it up front, but then come back and say, but here's where I need your help. Even if you don't need their help, by acting like you need their help, you are giving them a sense of control that they otherwise didn't have. Give them some business. Give them a task that you need their help with. Maybe you need it, maybe you don't. But you're creating goodwill by feeling like they might need you. Or you might need them specifically. And if they do, if this is something that is beneficial, they will feel sometimes a level of superiority that they need to be comfortable, that you need them. Jedi mind tricks, right? But it's true. Give them some business, give them a task that you feel like they can do, even if you already know how to do that. Hey, I need you to look at this. I was really concerned about this one right here. Can you give me your feedback there? What do you think would work better? Some old tidbits too. Use their words, use their language, notice their patterns so that you can anticipate it, right? Whether it be their pattern for the font thing, whether it's their pattern for when they come evaluating this, try to anticipate that, document that so that you don't have to keep tripping over that speed bump every time they come around. And finally, resolve that you get to choose what you get mad about. At the end of the day, especially if they're not making it a performance issue. This really isn't a classic micromanager that's not trying to manage you out of the organization. Just resolve that this is them. Why? Because you've already defined what success is for you, whether that's the job, the paycheck, the skill set you're trying to acquire, the visibility you're trying to acquire. You can endure it for a season as long as you understand why. As long as you understand your why, you can get through this. But you can train your micromanager on how to engage with you by anticipating their behaviors, by defining success for yourself, by making them define success for you in any given task, reminding them that this is what they wanted. Hey, listen, in our first conversation, you said you wanted this. Oh, it seems like you changed. Can can you clarify? Hold them accountable to the thing that they said. Because when you do, you get more clarification and they start to see their own pattern without telling them, I told you so. All right. Define success for the job, for you. Make them define the task. Overcommunicate, right? Give them updates before they ask for it. And then give them a role in a task. When you do this, you will have a better situation on your hands because you will have more control, a little bit more autonomy, and perhaps even give yourself some breathing room for your manager to be more functional.

Tools, Manager Takeaways, Closing

SPEAKER_00 25:15

I'll give you this last tidbit that you didn't ask for, but it's this is that most micromanagers are not leaders. Most micromanagers are not leaders. A person who manages something manages a task until completion. A leader is someone who is going to look at you, see your skill set, create vision, help you grow and expand. Don't expect that from your micromanager. They ain't got it. They just don't. Micromanagers may see talent, they may see capacity, but generally speaking, they don't know what to do with it. Many micromanagers have a myopic view. And so their blinders, their core focus is so intense that they have a hard time seeing the bigger picture. So don't expect it from them. That will keep you from being more frustrated than necessary. And you can look to other people for the kind of visionary leadership, for the kind of innovative leadership that you can benefit from. I want to give you a tool, by the way. So for each episode, I promise that we're going to give you a tool to help you navigate micromanagers. So in this toolkit, you can find it on our website, yourbosssucks.com. That's yourbosssucks.com. You're going to get the signs of a micromanager, the kinds of things that may trigger them, like new projects, um, new team members, pressure from above, tight deadlines, a checklist of sorts that you can kind of identify where they might be getting pressure, the psychology around the micromanager, a conversation guide to help you, some reflection questions, and my anchor plan. So if you haven't seen it, go watch my TED Talk. It's uh Natalie Parker, How to Deal with a Bad Boss. Um, and we talk about the anchor framework: assess, negotiate, consult, heed, observe, and resolve. In this micromanager profile, we give you the anchor framework and how you can use that to have a conversation and understand the situation you are in with your bad micromanaging boss. And we hope that's gonna help you. We'd love to hear from you. Go ahead and go catch that at yourbosshux.com so that you can work through this and figure out how you can navigate your situation. I want to give a shout out to all of the bosses who listen to this podcast. So we are listened to in over 55 countries across the world. And shout out to Germany, who is like our second biggest country listening next to the US. And I want to also, you know, give a give a shout out to those bosses who are listening. I have a lot of leaders say I listen to make sure I'm not the bad boss. So don't feel bad. I had one person actually say that they shared this with their manager because, hey, Mr. Manager, she's talking about you because we can't stand you because you act like this. So feel free if you feel comfortable, if you have a good relationship with your manager, flip it to them or flip it to a friend who's going through something. But either way, shout out to the managers who are listening. I want to also, you know, if you find yourself in this micromanaging space, if you find yourself hounding your team, feeling like you can't get your hands on everything and all the details, I want you to reflect a couple of different things. One is you can't control everything. Two, maybe the systems around you aren't set up to help you feel more comfortable. How do you help your team engage to leverage their skill set to help you be more aware and informed? Find ways that they need help rather than imposing yourself and recognize that micromanaging isn't like a coveted trait of leadership skills. 60% of people have experienced micromanagement. And 55% of people, especially executives, say it hurts morale and productivity. So you're not making your people better, you're actually making them worse. But make sure that you recognize the value of autonomy, engagement, and letting people own their jobs so that you can get the most out of your team. Keep listening, keep being open to feedback, all of those things, managers. If you're a shout out to your manager, if you're here listening, we would love to hear from you and what you're getting out of this. So, micromanagers, inside the mind, we're talking about people who want control, who maybe feel fragile because they may have more, you may have more capacity or intelligence in them, whatever it is. The way that you get around it is worth defining your success. Understanding that make them define the task for you, right? What's the task? What is success like? Collecting the task, overcommunicate, and then give them some business. I promise you, work on this and these steps will help you lessen the impact. It may never go away, but it will lessen the impact, and you'll be able to manage your emotions and your energy better. That's all the time we have for today. Thanks for listening. Next week, we're gonna be talking about the bully, the manager bully who makes you feel little. Apparently, they didn't graduate middle school or high school or whatever it was, but we're gonna talk about that, how it impacts you and how to navigate. That's all we have for now. Thanks. And remember, don't let your boss suck the life out of you.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

So your boss sucks. Now what? You ain't broken, you still guts.