One-on-Ones

Am I a micro-manager?

Find out how you can be the best manager to each employee while giving them autonomy.

Effects of micromanagement on employees

Autonomy plays an important role in employee engagement. Managers need to empower every person to take control over their work. However, this can be difficult at times. When you feel like you don’t have enough visibility or want more control over a project, managers can fall into the micromanaging trap.

A feeling of micromanagement can affect individual performance and engagement. Employees might feel like everything they do is scrutinized and lead them to think that you don’t trust enough to solve problems. Sometimes micromanagement can even be a blocker to employee retention.

A meeting template to know if your team feels micromanaged

It can be hard to assess whether or not you are “nit-picky” with your team. The best way is to ask honestly if there is anything you can improve on or how you can give them more autonomy. We’ve curated a set of questions that tackles this scenario! With this one-on-one meeting template, you can get feedback about your management style and find out how you can best support each person with their current tasks.

You can always use this template to create a regular feedback loop between you and employees! That way you can make sure they have everything they need without you checking in often.

Examples of micromanagement

Getting feedback on your management style often is a good practice. But sometimes, it can be tricky to know if you are engaging in a micromanagement style.

These are some examples of common micromanagement behaviors:

Re-doing the team’s work without their participation or knowledge.
Trying to fulfill their role responsibilities or asking for too much involvement in a project.
Always checking in on what the team is doing or asking for frequent updates.
Expecting detailed progress reports often.
Asking to be cc’d on every email or be involved in every communication.