The word “micromanagement” is well-known. Some people are afraid of the word and may even shun any business that uses it. But what exactly is micromanagement? Micromanagement is a management style where a store owner or manager closely monitors or supervises the work of employees or subordinates. Micromanagement typically has a bad reputation. Most employees perceive it as management’s attempt to eat up more of the employee’s share of the pie.
Why do people micromanage? Management may guarantee that activities are carried out precisely, or in other words, management’s way, by micromanaging. The issue is that it isn’t always the best or most efficient course of action. And that’s only one of the risks associated with micromanagement. Let’s examine some additional risks associated with this management approach and reasons why you should avoid this in your business.
Risk One: Loss of Control
When you micromanage your employees, you put yourself in a position where you make control the only management tool you have available. The strange thing about control is that you generally lose it when it’s your only tool for management. By micromanaging your team, you lose control and time rather than gaining control over your team and product. You must know that every employee responds differently to the same management techniques.
Lesson: When you severely restrict your style, you likewise severely restrict your capacity to communicate and, ultimately, manage.
Risk Two: A decline in trust
Over time, micromanagement will cause a severe loss of trust between you and your employees. Your team will no longer view you as a leader but as a boss who wants to bark instructions at its workers. What little trust there was between employees and management has been destroyed by this shattering conduct. When confidence is lost, employees may leave, resulting in a significant loss of production. Yes, the latter is the worst situation, but it does occur.
Lesson: Keep in mind that trust is a two-way street. Both you and your team members must be able to rely on each other.
Risk Three: Reliant Workers
Your team will start to depend on you once you micromanage them, rather than having the confidence to complete tasks on their own. Your staff will always feel that they need your continual supervision if you micromanage them. Dependent workers require more management time and effort, which will drain your time and energy. Remember, each employee has the skills needed to perform their job. By giving them independence, you let them perform to the best of their abilities, which produces amazing results.
Lesson: If you micromanage too much, your team may lose its abilities, talents, and insights, leaving you with a group that can only carry out your instructions.
Risk Four: Self-induced burnout
Micromanaging is draining. You will very quickly become exhausted from constantly looking over people’s shoulders. You’ll eventually start to despise your work, right down to all of your employees working at the business.
Yes, burnout is a risk in every trade, but nothing will light that wick quicker than the energy expended when micromanaging. You will lose time from your personal life as well.
Lesson: Micromanagement is detrimental to your and your employee’s physical and emotional well-being. Recognize that your team can do its work without you continuously looking over their shoulders by taking a moment to stand back, breathe, and comprehend this.
Risk Five: High turnover of employees
Simply put, the majority of individuals do not respond well to micromanagement. When employees get micromanaged, they frequently take one action—they resign. Because they feel mistreated and distrusted by their store owners. It is not worth the high turnover rate when you consider the factors that lead store owners to micromanage (ego, insecurity, lack of experience, perfectionism, arrogance).
Lesson: Micromanagement will cause your staff to leave and rant about your business practice online.
Risk Six: Lack of Independence
Your employees start losing their autonomy when you micromanage. When this occurs, they gradually lose interest in doing anything other than the assigned tasks. Nobody will think outside the box or go above and beyond to complete a task. If you give the same folks some autonomy and freedom, they’ll be content and at ease and will likely produce excellent results for your business. After all–isn’t this your primary goal anyway–to build a successful business?
Conclusion: Autonomy is essential for employee progress. The promotion of employees should be one of management’s objectives.
Risk Seven: Lack of Innovation
The biggest drawback of micromanagement is that it kills the creative spirit of your team. Your employees are the front-line soldiers of your stores. They understand your customers, products, and policies. Limiting them to the assigned tasks due to micromanagement hinders them from proposing new ideas, innovations, and approaches.
Lesson: Innovation is essential to advancement. Any opportunity for development gets destroyed by excessively micromanaging your workforce.
Conclusion:
You can stop micromanaging if you catch yourself doing it. You must have faith in the individuals you work with and trust that they can complete the task even without your supervision at all times. They’ll surprise you by increasing their creativity, ingenuity, and production with more flexibility. Minimally managed genuine employees will take your business to success beyond your imagination.
