Building Trust: The Final Chapter on Micromanagement

We're going to conclude our discussion on micromanagement by examining the issue of trust. A micromanagement relationship is generally one with low trust. By definition, you micromanage because you can't trust your team member to do the right thing without your involvement.

As a result, this may trigger feelings from your team member's side. They might be thinking, for example, "If you don't trust me, why should I trust you?" Some of your specific micromanagement behaviors may have broken trust in a very concrete way. For example, you might be creeping in on your team member's personal life. I once had a manager who questioned my commitment to the job because they saw several non-work-related calendar invites in my work calendar.

Being micromanaged may also mean that your team member doesn't trust that you will be an advocate for them and help them reach their own career goals. I once had a manager who, when someone else said they didn't understand my model, piled on and said, "Yeah, that doesn't really make sense to me either, James," even though during our one-on-one just previously, they had said that things looked great.

Things may have gone so bad between you and your team member that now they feel like you are also looking for the next opportunity to throw them under the bus or potentially fire them from this position. Gosh, this is why micromanagement is one of the top three reasons that people quit. Who can live with a mindset like this for 40 or more hours a week?

The goal of this entire course was to provide approaches to help you recognize your micromanagement, minimize instances of triggers, and then manage those triggers that happen. But depending on where your relationship is with a particular team member that you're micromanaging, the information we provided in this course may not be enough to repair that relationship.

Building a Bridge: From Toxic to Productive

Today we'll focus on building a bridge in a more proactive way so that you can try to turn the relationship from toxic to productive before you lose another team member.

Now, the first and most important question that you need to ask is, "Do you even want to try? Is this relationship worth improving for you?" One of the first questions that I like to ask is, is the main challenge my micromanaging? Or are there other factors where even if I took that pressure away, the working relationship would still fail?

For example, is the person fundamentally missing some core skills needed for this role? Were they simply not a good hire? And maybe that's one of the reasons that's triggering the micromanagement tendencies. If, on the other hand, you really examine the working relationship and you realize, you know, that it started great, that it could still be great, but it's just been very frayed and ground down by your micromanagement, then it's time for you to take action to save it.

Taking the First Move

I want to emphasize that again. You, the manager, have to make the first move. The more frayed the relationship is, the more that's true and the quicker you should plan to move. This isn't like a regular relationship that you might have with a friend or a partner, where there's a more balanced give and take, and either party can stop being stubborn, step in, and say, "I want to change."

This is a relationship where you are a manager. There is a power dynamic, and that power dynamic often is made more acute by your micromanagement. So that's why you, the manager, absolutely have to be the first person to extend a hand. We'll talk about more on how in the next session.