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With the Covid-19 pandemic and the impossibility of working in person, companies had to adapt to the remote model. With employees working from home, many leaders felt a lack of control over their teams.

Concerned about keeping productivity levels similar to pre-pandemic times, some managers started to monitor their employees’ work more closely—going as far as controlling the smallest details of corporate daily life.

This excess control is called micromanagement and has harmful effects on the team in the medium and long term.

The negative impact of micromanagement is so significant that it is considered a corporate pathology capable of discouraging employees, leading to low levels of engagement and productivity.

Learn more below about what micromanagement is, how to identify it, and why it is negative for your company.

Keep reading to learn about:

• ● What micromanagement is;
• ● How to identify it;
• ● 4 negative effects of micromanagement;
• ● Micromanagement in software development;
• ● How to move away from micromanagement;

What is micromanagement?

Micromanagement means the excessive control of a manager or supervisor over how work should be done, reducing or removing the employee’s autonomy to carry out company tasks and processes.

It is a very old term in corporate vocabulary, appearing for the first time in 1975 in an article by the British magazine The Economist. However, the practice can be identified even earlier, in the 1930s and 1940s.

In recent years, micromanagement gained attention again with the Covid-19 pandemic, when employees started working from home and managers faced difficulties supervising remotely.

As a result, it became common for managers to follow every detail of employees’ processes and activities with excessive attention—also asking to be copied on all emails and consulted for every small decision.

This type of management is even considered by science a type of corporate pathology. According to researcher and physician Richard D. White, micromanagement is a compulsive behavior, similar to an addiction, and is characterized by the desire to control people and processes. This happens, according to White, when individuals feel uncertain and insecure.

However, this does not mean that every manager who cares about details is a micromanager. See below the main characteristics that represent this behavior.

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How to identify micromanagement?

In practice, the micromanager is often that supervisor who interferes in everything and wants to control all processes and results of subordinates. Below are some behaviors that characterize micromanagement:

• ● Extreme perfectionism with deliveries;
• ● Centralizing as many demands as possible;
• ● Wanting the final word even on small decisions;
• ● Need to always be aware of the smallest progress made by the team, including asking to be copied on all emails;
• ● Concern about employees’ working time, including break hours;
• ● Lack of trust in the team and in each employee’s skills;

Why is micromanagement bad for your company?

Good supervision is one that aligns and guides employees’ work. Micromanagement, on the other hand, has negative effects on productivity and on the team’s health as a whole. See below why that happens.

1) It demotivates and disengages employees

According to a report developed by Gartner, controlling the smallest details can disengage and demotivate employees.

That’s because micromanagement affects employees’ self-confidence in their own skills and knowledge, making them constantly question their capabilities. In some cases, as Gartner points out, the professional may feel they are not good enough or do not deserve the role.

Over time, the employee may also develop fear of communicating with their superior, because they know they will always be questioned or guided to follow the supervisor’s path.

In this scenario, the employee will feel less confident to share—even, for example, an improvement they identified.

2) It interferes with the work climate

Organizational climate is one of the key elements for a company to succeed. That’s why the topic is a concern of academic studies and organizational leaders around the world.

As a result, an environment in which the manager positions themselves above subordinates, questioning and supervising the smallest details, can turn into a “toxic workplace”.

According to a study published in the journal International Journal of Research and Public Health, in 2020, a workplace considered toxic can be harmful to employees’ health, leading to stress, burnout, depression, anxiety, and other psychological issues.

3) It reduces productivity

Building trust environments by leaders and managers is directly linked to increased productivity and higher delivery quality.

In other words, a satisfied employee can be more productive and more committed to bringing value and positive impacts to the company.

Consequently, it’s easy to understand the opposite scenario: insecurity, dissatisfaction, fear, and exhaustion can indeed negatively impact your company’s overall productivity.

4) It reduces focus on what really matters

Beyond all problems with engagement, motivation, and productivity, micromanagement also makes employees spend part of their work time providing explanations to the manager about their own work process.

In other words, to deal with a micromanaging supervisor, the employee needs to reduce focus on activities that can generate value for the company and the projects they are involved in, to justify small processes, decisions, and directions they took.

The effects of micromanagement on software development

At this point, it’s important to remember that micromanagement can happen in many types of companies and different market niches. However, it can be even more harmful to the software development process.

That’s because developing systems—whether web or mobile—is an analytical process that demands time and creativity. Often, a software developer faces complex problems whose answers require concentration, study, and research.

Under a micromanager, the developer ends up directing time and attention to bureaucratic issues that do not add value to digital products. This makes innovation difficult.

Here at X-Apps, when we allocate developers to other companies or projects, we always advise that our developers should not be placed in excessive meetings, precisely because we understand their time must be focused on what really matters: delivering value.

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So, how do you move away from micromanagement?

Gartner, the world’s largest IT consultancy, identified micromanagement as one of the biggest problems for the future of work. Fortunately, they also pointed to practical ways to avoid this behavior.

The first step is a change in managers’ mindset.

And it starts with some self-knowledge questions, such as:

• ● Where and how do I really add value to the business?
• ● Is the amount of supervision I do today really necessary, or should I dedicate that time to other tasks, such as creating strategies with colleagues or identifying opportunities together with my team?
• ● Does the search for perfection always make sense? Do all activities always need to be perfect and worth this effort of time and money?
• ● Is your way really the only right way?

Then come some tips and suggestions to avoid excessive control.

1) Your employees are not robots—they are smart too!

This means your employees have talent and autonomy to solve problems on their own. If they have any doubt or issue, then they will come to you.

2) The 80/20 rule

This is a suggestion Gartner created to solve micromanagement in practice. It consists of letting employees solve problems on their own in 80% of cases, being close in only 20%.

3) Create only one weekly checkpoint

Instead of creating multiple checkpoints and to-do lists, it is possible to create only one control list to guide the team’s weekly work. That way, your employees already know what you expect from them and the time needed to deliver what is required.

4) Don’t tell how to do it—ask how it will be done

Another tip is to avoid always showing how the task must be carried out. Instead, ask the employee how they plan to execute the demand, why they chose that path, and what difficulties they expect to face.

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