Wikipedia defines micromanagement like this:

In business management, micromanagement is a management style whereby a manager closely observes and/or controls and/or reminds the work of their subordinates or employees.

– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromanagement

While the term management style makes it sound micromanagement is somewhat a choice, I more think of it as rooted in insecurities, incompetence, wrong priorities, lack of trust and maybe many more things. So, less of a deliberate choice, but a consequence of something, or the lack thereof.

The section Causes of the article acknowledges the relation “to the personality of the manager”, but also mentions external factors, such as company culture.

The obvious effect is disengagement of the micromanaged person. While there are maybe (rare) cases of people who like to be micromanaged, many (or most?) value autonomy, being able to be creative within the bounds of that autonomy and consider the process of finding a solution to the problem they’re given more fulfilling than actually executing it.

Being micromanaged means that the (creative) part of finding a solution is taken away and you’re left with the (boring) execution, while you maybe even disagree with the solution forced upon you.

From the perspective of the manager, micromanagement is necessary for a certain reason. They might not have the trust in the reportees abilities, therefore they think it’s needed to “help” them, tell them what to do, prescribe the steps which achieve the goal.

Reverse this 🙃 Link to heading

What if we reverse the situation? A reportee (an individual contributor for example) lacks the trust in their manager to do their job. While we usually don’t set the goals for our managers as reportees as they do for us, there are certain things we expect from them: Communicating expectations, providing feedback, and providing guidance in difficult situations. And ideally we also communicate those expectations.¹ And when doing this, being specific is absolutely fair. In any relationship, the clearer we communicate what we need, the more likely it is we will get it. This is not micromanaging. But rather the reasonable thing to do.

On top of that, companies usually define what a manager’s job entails. Either via a job description, or a career ladder or other means. In short, as a reportee you have expectations towards your manager and you should have.

As a reportee you may find yourself following up with your manager for almost everything you agreed they would do: Aligning with some other manager on a question you raised with them, guidance on how to progress your career and achieve a promotion, escalating a situation with HR, etc. You have a manager to work with you and this includes actions to agree on.² Whatever it is, they always seem to need multiple reminders and even then don’t do things at all; or only last minute, which is almost equally bad, as it also undermines the trust you have in them.

While following up with someone is perfectly fine of course, if it happens too often, you might lose trust in their abilities to actually follow through with what you agreed on, or even worse, lose trust in their abilities to even be able to do this task.³

What to do? Link to heading

So, what to do in such a situation? First off you could decide to do things yourself (to the extent you’re able to and permitted within the organisation you work in). Then only inform your manager about what you did. In case you’re less certain what the right thing to do is, let them know about your plan, to see how they react.

In case you raise a question in which your manager would need to align with another manager on their level, what’s holding you back from doing this yourself? Nothing really, you understand the issue better than your manager anyway, and that other manager is maybe happy that they can deal with someone else than your manager (because maybe they feel just like you do about them). Escalating something to your manager’s manager usually leads to “Did you speak with your manager about that?” as a response. Well, it’s mostly not the right thing to say “I didn’t because I don’t think it would lead to anything anyway”. Even if your manager’s manager agrees regarding the incompetencies of your manager, they most likely won’t directly say that and work around their own reportee. So, in some shape or form you need to get your manager onboard, but maybe by getting them to agree with you to raise the topic with your manager’s manager.

Sometimes there are multiple ways of achieving the same thing. Is your manager really the only person who can answer your question? What about HR? Other managers? Find a person who is knowledgeable about the topic. If other people cannot help you directly, you can still get information from them, which helps you work with your manager. Come prepared to be as specific as possible.⁴

All of this of course means you are effectively doing your manager’s job. That’s not great, but maybe the best thing you can do in a given situation. Long and mid term this will lead to frustration, but maybe has the side effect that other managers around you see potential in you.

In the end, there is always one solution: quit. As much as providing feedback, expecting people to change and grow is what we all want to believe in. Change is hard and unlikely to happen fast. Quitting is not always running away from a problem.