The Micromanager: Control, Anxiety and Perfectionism, all wrapped up into one
A Somatic Experiencing Perspective
The Micromanager, aka the most complained about management type by employees.
Primary Complaint: "They don't trust me to do the job I was hired to do." (when trust issues are high so is the control)
Key Behaviors: Demanding to be CC'd on every email, nitpicking minor details that don't affect outcomes, requiring constant status updates, and dictating how work must be done rather than defining what the result should be. (when trust issues are high so is the control)
Why It Frustrates Employees: It strips away employee autonomy, slows down workflow, signals a total lack of trust, and causes severe mental fatigue. (when trust issues are high, so is the control)
To Summarise the micromanager: “When trust issues are high, so is the desire to control.”
And the funniest part is the trust issues were (most likely) not formed in this team, company or role, but wayyy back when, yup you guessed it cHilDhoOd.
On the flip side: this could be a first time manager who is so excited and nervous about their opportunity the only thing they can do is control because they are not sure what else to do.
But if this is a long term micromanager where this is now their style rest assured we are dealing with trust issues, from childhood.
These trust issues can be rooted in a couple of different things:
Anxiety but young anxiety, it feels like when the parents are getting divorced and the child thinks their perfectionism will keep the parents together. Could be a mix of dissociation meets anxiety.
Need to control outcomes, it feels like we don’t have a lot of capacity for anything other than our way and our expectations. Hyper-fixation is involved. Sensations: tightness, contraction, speeding up.
Desire to be perceived as perfect, the best, no flaws- this is fawn energy and a survival response, feels like conditional love, afraid to show up oneself fully for fear of rejection. Giving a child hiding their real selves, agreement over confrontation, could feel like the pressure that is applied does not match the work aka taking things wayy to seriously.
So leaders, when you are observing your managers,
go a little deeper than “this team always delivers” or “this team always struggles”- see if there is whole team participation, see if there is light-heartedness, see if there is camaraderie. Remember, it is your responsibility to train and find the specialist help your managers need to grow the capacity of their teams, in turn growing the capacity of your organisation.
