Article

The Micromanagement Disease: Symptoms, Diagnosis, and Cure

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Abstract

“The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done,” Theodore Roosevelt once observed, “and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” Unfortunately, many managers have not heeded TR's century-old advice to practice self restraint, but instead needlessly over-manage, over-scrutinize, and over-frustrate employees. Such meddlesome bosses now are called micromanagers. A micromanager can be much more than just a nuisance in today's complex organization. The bothersome boss who second guesses every decision a subordinate makes, frets about the font size of the latest progress report, or inspects all of his employees emails not only frustrates and demoralizes his harassed workers, but seriously damages the productivity of the organization and, over the long run, may jeopardize the organization's survival. Unfortunately, micromanagement is a fact of management life. Why do so many people hate to be micromanaged, yet so many managers continue to do it? Why have we all worked for micromanagers—but have never been one ourselves? But have we? Maybe the noted management consultant and cartoon icon, Pogo, had it right when he quipped, “We have met the enemy…and he is us.” Micromanagement now commonly refers to the control of an enterprise in every particular and to the smallest detail, with the effect of obstructing progress and neglecting broader, higher-level policy issues. Micromanagement has been practiced and recognized well before we labeled it as an organizational pathology. In 1946, Peter Drucker called for a “democracy of management” whereby organizations need to decentralize and delegate more decision making authority to employees. In 1960, Douglas McGregor described a Theory X manager as one possessing many of the characteristics of the modern micromanager, one who is poor at proper delegating but one who believes he delegates well. While micromanagement has always disrupted organizational life, it only recently has entered the workplace vocabulary, with the first mention of the term appearing in 1975 in an article in the Economist. Since then, increasing concern has been focused on the impact of picayune bosses.

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... Within hospitality, more contemporary approaches such as transformational leadership or servant leadership (Chon and Zoltan, 2019) may be present, coupled with characteristics related to approaches that may be considered autocratic, such as transactional and micromanagement (White, 2010). In practice, however, delineating and oversimplifying them may have difficulties (Muhammad et al., 2015). ...
... Micromanagement may be considered managing tasks using excessive control over the person or the situation (Mishra et al., 2019;Sidhu, 2012). Often, micromanagement is considered negative as it may result in employee detachment, leading to a reduction in productivity due to an inability to make their own contribution by adding value or taking responsibility (White, 2010). Although studies suggest that a key issue surrounds trust and poor recruitment, there are difficulties in the availability of appropriate candidates to recruit. ...
... Several hospitality organisations have raised concerns that new hires do not always possess the required skill levels (Gardner, 2022), requiring high levels of support and guidance from managers. As such, micromanagement aids the learning process and may be seen as beneficial (White, 2010). In principle, taking this approach allows managers to gain knowledge of their team and may alleviate difficult situations through prompt interventions. ...
Article
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This study considers the role of leadership within the hospitality sector as a key tool in raising performance levels. Hospitality is unique in its service-based approach, which relies on employees to ensure effective service. Post-COVID-19 and Brexit, the hospitality sector has seen a shift in reliance towards a home workforce, and as such, retention has become an area of greater importance. This case study investigation adopted a qualitative approach to consider the perceptions of six managers within a UK-based luxury hotel. Semi-structured interviews were used to draw out their experience of approaches used to ensure effective delivery in their areas of responsibility. The research concludes that a shift in leadership approach (from autocratic to democratic) is a necessity to retain staff, particularly as the shift to a greater reliance on a home workforce due to COVID-19 and Brexit starts to impact the sector. There does, however, remain a need to be more autocratic in certain situations to ensure the quality of service. Subsequently, communication becomes critical in the building of relationships. The research considers leadership approaches from a managerial perspective and is based on individual perceptions. Traditionally, research has been conducted from an employee perspective.
... Within hospitality more contemporary approaches such as transformational leadership or servant leadership (Chon and Zoltan, 2019) may be present coupled with characteristics related to approaches which may be considered autocratic such as transactional and micro-management (White, 2010). In practice, however, delineating and over-simplifying them may have difficulties (Muhammad et al., 2015). ...
... Micromanagement may be considered managing tasks using excessive control over the person or the situation (Mishra et al., 2019;Sidhu, 2012). Often micromanagement is considered negatively as it may result in employee detachment, leading to reduction in productivity due to an inability to make their own contribution through adding value and or taking responsibility (White, 2010). Although studies suggest that a key issue surrounds trust and poor recruitment, difficulties in the availability of appropriate candidates to recruit. ...
... Several hospitality organisations have raised concerns that new hires do not always possess the required skill levels (Gardner, 2022), requiring high levels of support and guidance from managers. As such, micromanagement aids the learning process and may be seen as beneficial (White, 2010). In principle taking this approach allows managers knowledge of their team and may alleviate difficult situations through prompt interventions. ...
Article
Full-text available
This study considers the role of leadership within the hospitality sector as a key tool in raising performance levels. Hospitality is unique in its service-based approach reliant on employees to ensure an effective service. Post Covid-19 and Brexit, the hospitality sector has seen a shift in reliance towards a home workforce and as such retention has become an area of greater importance. This case study investigation adopted a qualitative approach to consider perceptions of six managers within a UK based luxury hotel. Semi-structured interviews were used to draw out their experience of approaches used to ensure effective delivery in their areas of responsibility. The research concludes a shift in leadership approach (autocratic to democratic) as a necessity to retain staff, particularly as the shift to a greater reliance on a home workforce due to Covid-19 and Brexit starting to impact the sector. There does however remain a need to be more autocratic in certain situations to ensure quality of service remains. Subsequently. communication becomes critical in the building of relationships. The research considers leadership approaches from the managerial perspective and is based on individual perceptions. Traditionally research has been conducted from the employee perspective.
... Micromanagement is a leadership style that carries somewhat varying opinions among researchers. The general consensus defines micromanagement as leaders who control their employees in a manner viewed as domineering and extreme (Gardanova et al., 2019;Wendler, 2013;White, 2010), and as such, it is a negative style (Cho et al., 2017). Pastel (2008), however, views micromanagement as a form of centralised decision-making and an effective approach in mitigating risks, a viewpoint which Delgado et al. (2015) view as an illusion. ...
... They therefore reduce their participation, impacting employee performance and job satisfaction (Burns, 2017). White (2010) and Bedeian (2002) contend that although micromanagers may increase short-term productivity, in the long term, they inject anxiety into employees and fear of relentless disapproval evaporates any previous motivations to contribute to work tasks (Mathieu et al.,2014). ...
... This viewpoint also supports Thomas (2014) notion that micromanaging behaviours, such as exclusion from decision-making can force millennials to personify alienated or conformer employees, obeying due to fear of further criticism (Thomas, 2014;Mathieu et al., 2014). Prominent cascading effects revealed from this research and supported by White (2010) and Burns (2017) include anxiety (51%) demotivation (43%) and dissatisfaction (89%), undoubtedly impacting organisational productivity as cautioned by Mathieu et al. (2014). ...
Article
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Purpose It is predicted that micromanagement may become a growing workplace concern post-Covid-19, with managers grappling for control in the current hybrid/remote working environment. This will be happening at a time when millennials represent half of the working population. This study contributes to existing literature and provides an overall appreciation of the complexities of micromanagement and how it impacts millennials' followership styles. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative study was undertaken and a series of hypotheses were tested. The target sample for this research was the millennial cohort aged between 24 and 41. Data were analysed using SPSS. Findings This paper confirmed that “unfavourable followership styles” consisted of various negative followership reactions such as anxiety, demotivation, dissatisfaction, disengagement, reduction in support for managers, limited upward feedback, team conflict, reduced productivity and innovation due to fear of making mistakes ultimately facilitating a toxic workplace. Essentially, this research validated the notion that in order to create a sustainable organisation post-Covid-19, HR professionals must take proactive measures to mitigate this form of harmful leadership. Research limitations/implications Data weaknesses transpire where respondents have never interacted with a micromanager in reality. Therefore, perceived reactions to a hypothetical micromanager may differ from those respondents who were exposed to micromanagers. Originality/value A lack of research exists on the intersection of micromanagement and millennials' followership styles and as such this paper bridges that gap.
... This is due to the mistaken perception of interruption, where a collaborator feels obstructed in his activities, responsibilities, decisions, and authority. This is through excessive, unwanted, counterproductive obstruction and disruption of people or processes (White, 2010;Chambers, 2009). ...
... According to Sanaghan and Lohndord (2016), it is possible to identify micro-managers' characteristics, as shown in Table I. Based on the studies conducted by Chambers (2009), White (2010), Kumar and Hsiao (2007), Yost (2013), and Li and Khalid (2015), micro-management is described as the convergence of three different areas or components, which correspond to leadership, management models and organizational factors, as shown in general terms in Fig. 1. This relationship describes how leadership models being used by Project Managers with specific skills and attitudes take effect over the organizational environment and team development, together with management frameworks that require or settle to use of controlling and monitoring practices, can become a monitoring and bureaucracy excess, where also the organizational culture could create an internal competition between collaborators, and even rewarding the usage of authoritarian practices. ...
... In the case of Costa Rica within the ICT industry, Lopez and Jenkins (2017) identify in their study that 52.8% of the companies used linear methodologies, which, having a rigid and detailed structure of their planning, give room for the use of micro business management techniques to control the administration of projects, for this efficiently they rely on frameworks such as PRINCE2® or PMI since they are methods based on linear processes tested and recognized in the industry. Micro-management, which corresponds to an over-involvement in work assigned to others (Yost, 2013), causes demotivation and a negative effect on the synergy of the teams, which gives way to a feeling of dissatisfaction, as mentioned in their studies; it can be observed that this situation leads to a vast staff turnover (White, 2010;Zaballa et al., 2021). Expanding on the above, Rodriguez (2020) indicates the following associated costs: ...
Article
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This research covers a micro-management presence study, taking into consideration the three main elements of this concept, where organizational culture, project management frameworks, and leadership are found; thus, a relationship between these areas is established and detailed so that a relationship between micro-management as concept and issue from enterprise management can also be identified within a project management context. This research has been made qualitative, exploratory with a transversal denomination, creating and applying an assessment instrument to know the perspective of a small population from the Technology, Information, and Communication industry in Costa Rica; thus, taking into account these results and analyzing it against the theory, so that enterprise elements within organizational culture, project management frameworks and leadership, where micro-management could accommodate can be identified, as results of this research, by placing several significant symptoms and scenarios where team's performance and motivation are affected negatively.
... Micromanagement has been long categorized as destructive leadership behaviors and a long-standing problem in public administration (Behn, 1995;Shaw et al., 2011;White, 2010). ...
... Micromanagers exhibit control over an employee "in every particular and to the smallest detail" with the effect of harming their development (White, 2010, p. 71). They are unwilling to share power or delegate, do not trust employees to work autonomously, are obsessed with unnecessary details, but forget the bigger picture (Shaw et al., 2011;White, 2010). They also play favorites and manipulate and blame subordinates for mistakes (White, 2010). ...
... They are unwilling to share power or delegate, do not trust employees to work autonomously, are obsessed with unnecessary details, but forget the bigger picture (Shaw et al., 2011;White, 2010). They also play favorites and manipulate and blame subordinates for mistakes (White, 2010). Hence, micromanagement causes psychological distress and emotional exhaustion among employees (Webster et al., 2016). ...
... Many authors have explained the causes of micromanagement, according to their perception. We consolidated the perspectives of different researchers (Badger et al., 2009;White, 2010) to classify the causes into three main aspects: corporate culture, manager"s personality and properties of subordinates. ...
... However, it will still be trailed by employees because only followers will get rewarded and recognized in this culture. White (2010) claims that the structure of an association can prompt micromanagement. Moreover, the level of micromanagement mirrors the qualities of the association (Wright, 2000). ...
... However, most of these research only touch upon one or few aspects of micromanagement. Inordinate command over strategy (Khatri, 2009) (White, 2010). As explained by Aronberg (1985), this managerial behaviour of extreme supervision can be a result of the manager's previous working experience, which he or she regards as valuable and insightful asset for his subordinate. ...
Article
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Companies are always needing an individual to lead/manage its employees. However, some managers have been known to want to direct and control every move/task performed by their subordinates (known as micromanagement), which creates a sense of insecurity and disengagement among the employees. Employee morale and employee turnover were adopted as measures of productivity in this study. A critical review of extant literature revealed a nexus between micromanaging behaviour and employee productivity. Micromanagement, it was found, is not all negative; under certain instances and settings, it can be beneficial. It can be advantageous to a company if it is done correctly. Accordingly, managers must be aware of their employees’ performance and attitudes, but this must be done in a non-critical manner. Furthermore, it was recommended that entrepreneurs ought to: refrain from meddling in the middle of their employees’ work by assigning tasks based on their employees’ strong suits; trust their team; consider what knowledge and resources an employee would require to do delegated duties on their own, and instead of completing the job for them, focus on obtaining them that information. Instead than focusing on the process itself, think about the outcomes you want to see at the end of the project. describe the assignment’s end goal and then inquire as to how your employee would approach the problem; and enable their staff to make mistakes.
... This also brings us to the problem of vague boundaries (Ashforth et al., 2000). If the employees feel that seniors will not interfere in their domains of work, that they will not be micromanaged, that they will feel ownership (both in symbolic and real terms), that they will feel the urge to see their domain and the organization nurture and grow into something better, that they will be allowed to take the credit of the results of their contributions, and have a tangible share in the results a well, then the employees are likely to feel the ownership and will eventually be encouraged to take initiatives to make things better (Semler, 2007;White, 2010). ...
... Unconscious fears can also make it difficult for people to know where the boundaries of others begin because they have difficulty seeing where the boundary of their own 'self' ends (Levine & Frederick, 1997). Only a single supervisor who is unconsciously afraid to trust his employees can destroy feeling of ownership among his or her subordinates by getting inside their boundaries (White, 2010). The unconscious fear, or neurologically speaking a dysregulated nervous system with a sympathetic dominance, makes a person triggered by the actions of others a lot more then needed often unnecessarily, so they may also unconsciously want to control the actions of others to avoid the feeling of threat (van der Kolk, 2014). ...
... A culture of risk-taking and experimentation is against the very essence of a bureaucratic environment. From Weber to Schumpeter, to Drucker, to Phelps, all have agreed that a bureaucratic culture is where the entrepreneurial spirit dies (Brouwer, 2002;Campagnolo & Vivel, 2012;Phelps, 2006;White, 2010). ...
Chapter
A culture of fear, control, and meaninglessness can effectively kill the entrepreneurial spirit within an organization. This chapter will explore why such a culture typically takes root and how it is deadly for the organization's entrepreneurial orientation. The chapter is based on an interdisciplinary reflective analysis done by exploring disciplines including depth psychology, neuroscience, positive psychology, and organizational behavior. The chapter argues from the perspectives of these disciplines that it is perhaps the factor of safety, risk-taking, collaboration, and meaningfulness if present in organizational culture that will eventually cultivate the spirit of entrepreneurship in an organization. While discussing these factors, the chapter also explains how seemingly irrational forces of the unconscious mind keep the leadership from adopting a behavior which is fundamentally important in fostering a culture where entrepreneurial behavior takes root. The chapter also explains how these psychic forces can be turned around to cultivate an entrepreneurial culture in an organization.
... 973). Although micromanagement might initially inspire productivity gains, this increase tends to be temporary and is soon overshadowed by the long-term negative effects on creativity, customer service, morale, job performance, job satisfaction, and retention (Chambers, 2004;Dew, 1997;Ruys, 2013;White, 2010). Given its negative effects on individual productivity and team morale, coupled with the need to retain key IT professionals, it is critical for organizations to understand how micromanagement impacts IT professionals' work experience. ...
... Existing academic literature explicitly addressing micromanagement has described it as a management style that can affect both, the supervisor-subordinate relationship (Alvesson & Svennigson, 2003;White, 2010;Skiba, Saini, & Friend, 2016) and the client-contractor relationship (Austin & Larkey, 1992;Rottman & Lacity, 2006). Despite the difference in the characters of these affected relationships, micromanagement is consistently characterized as excessive interference with work processes in both contexts. ...
... Along similar lines, with respect to supervisor-subordinate relationships, micromanagement is acknowledged as an example of bad leadership, especially when managing knowledge workers who have specialized knowledge in their fields (Alvesson & Svennigson, 2003). White (2010) describes micromanagement as dysfunctional managerial behavior that negatively impacts morale and productivity as well as contributing to increased turnover. For exampke, Skiba and colleagues (2016) find that micromanagement exacerbates the relationship between sales managers' focus on cost control and increased sales force turnover. ...
Article
Full-text available
This study seeks to broaden our understanding of the popular, yet under-researched, concept of micromanagement in the IT workforce by exploring IT professionals' trust in the competence of their supervisor as an antecedent to their perceptions of being micromanaged. The study also explores whether felt responsibility is the mechanism via which micromanagement negatively affects IT professionals' job satisfaction and organizational commitment, both proximal factors of turnover. These relationships are explored under the aegis of the Management Control Systems models, leader-member exchange theory, and the job characteristics model. Results indicate that trust in supervisor competence is a significant antecedent to IT professionals' perceptions of being micromanaged and that felt responsibility fully mediates the relationship between micromanagement and organizational commitment. The findings underscore the importance of building IT professionals' trust in their supervisor's competence and suggest that organizations proactively provide early intervention to negate the potential adverse impact on organizational outcomes.
... This also brings us to the problem of vague boundaries (Ashforth et al., 2000). If the employees feel that seniors will not interfere in their domains of work, that they will not be micromanaged, that they will feel ownership (both in symbolic and real terms), that they will feel the urge to see their domain and the organization nurture and grow into something better, that they will be allowed to take the credit of the results of their contributions, and have a tangible share in the results a well, then the employees are likely to feel the ownership and will eventually be encouraged to take initiatives to make things better (Semler, 2007;White, 2010). ...
... Unconscious fears can also make it difficult for people to know where the boundaries of others begin because they have difficulty seeing where the boundary of their own 'self' ends (Levine & Frederick, 1997). Only a single supervisor who is unconsciously afraid to trust his employees can create or destroy feeling of ownership among his or her subordinates by getting inside their boundaries (White, 2010). The unconscious fear, or neurologically speaking a dysregulated nervous system with a sympathetic dominance, makes a person triggered by the actions of others a lot more then needed often unnecessarily, so they may also unconsciously want to control the actions of others to avoid the feeling of threat (van der Kolk, 2014). ...
... A culture of risk-taking and experimentation is against the very essence of a bureaucratic environment. From Weber to Schumpeter, to Drucker, to Phelps, all have agreed that a bureaucratic culture is where the entrepreneurial spirit dies (Brouwer, 2002;Campagnolo & Vivel, 2012;Phelps, 2006;White, 2010). ...
Chapter
A culture of fear, control, and meaninglessness can effectively kill the entrepreneurial spirit within an organization. This chapter will explore why such a culture typically takes root and how it is deadly for the organization's entrepreneurial orientation. The paper is based on an interdisciplinary reflective analysis done by exploring disciplines including depth psychology, neuroscience, positive psychology, and organizational behavior. The chapter argues from the perspectives of these disciplines that it is perhaps the factor of safety, risk-taking, collaboration, and meaningfulness if present in organizational culture, will eventually cultivate the spirit of entrepreneurship in an organization. While discussing these factors, the chapter also explains how seemingly irrational forces of the unconscious mind keep the leadership from adopting a behavior which is fundamentally important in fostering a culture where entrepreneurial behavior takes root. The paper also explains how these psychic forces can be turned around to cultivate an entrepreneurial culture in an organization.
... However, these management styles exhibited by managers can sometimes contain risks (Bielaszka-DuVernay, 2008). Micromanagement, which has recently been subject to different researches (Chambers, 2004;Hume, 2019;Lewis, 2014;White, 2010;Wright, 2000 etc.), can be considered as one of these methods. ...
... On the other hand, Collins & Collins (2002) argue that proper delegation of tasks, creating a vision for the future, hiring employees with appropriate skills, having a manual of organizational principles and procedures, determining the boundaries in subordinate-superior relationships, tolerating employees' mistakes can also be helpful in minimizing incidents of micromanagement. White (2010) lists the issues to be considered for the prevention of micromanagement as follows: ...
... Situations that are perceived as guiding and collaboration by a person can be seen as manipulation, excessive control or interference by another one. However, White (2010) proposes some criteria to understand whether there is micromanagement in organizations or not. In this sense, we can ask the following questions: ...
Article
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The aim of this study is to develop a valid and reliable measurement tool that can be used to measure the level of school principals' micromanagement behavior. After a comprehensive literature review, a candidate item pool with 52 items was created. While writing the items, micro-manager behaviors defined in the literature were adapted to school principals. The items were submitted to the expert opinion and necessary corrections were made in the items in line with the feedback from the experts. Candidate items were applied to two different samples to carry out validity and reliability analysis. Data obtained from the first sample of 304 teachers were used for exploratory factor analysis. The second sample group consisted of 353 teachers and the data obtained from this group was used for confirmatory factor analysis and reliability analysis. The findings support the four-dimensional structure of the scale with 27 items. The first dimension was named as "unable to subordinate self (15 items)", the second dimension was "time manipulation (5 items)", the third dimension was "excessive control over methodology (4 items)" and the fourth dimension was "excessive reporting (3 items)". Findings from reliability analyses were also satisfactory. To determine the reliability of the scale Cronbach's Alpha internal consistency coefficients were calculated. It was .958 for the first factor, .831 for the second, .776 for the third and .743 for the fourth and .959 for the total scale. In this context, it can be stated that the scale is valid and reliable. It can be used to determine the level of school principals' micromanagement behavior and to associate this behavior with different organizational variables.
... Micromanagement has been long categorized as destructive leadership behaviors and a long-standing problem in public administration (Behn, 1995;Shaw et al., 2011;White, 2010). ...
... Micromanagers exhibit control over an employee "in every particular and to the smallest detail" with the effect of harming their development (White, 2010, p. 71). They are unwilling to share power or delegate, do not trust employees to work autonomously, are obsessed with unnecessary details, but forget the bigger picture (Shaw et al., 2011;White, 2010). They also play favorites and manipulate and blame subordinates for mistakes (White, 2010). ...
... They are unwilling to share power or delegate, do not trust employees to work autonomously, are obsessed with unnecessary details, but forget the bigger picture (Shaw et al., 2011;White, 2010). They also play favorites and manipulate and blame subordinates for mistakes (White, 2010). Hence, micromanagement causes psychological distress and emotional exhaustion among employees (Webster et al., 2016). ...
... Este un tip de manager deranjant, care se îndoiește de fiecare decizie pe care o ia un subordonat, care se agită pentru orice detaliu sau inspectează e-mailurile subordonaților săi. Acest comportament îi poate determina pe angajați să devină demotivați și respectiv demoralizați, iar pe termen lung poate periclita viitorul organizației (White, 2010). Astfel contribuind la frică, stres, moral scăzut și satisfacție scăzută la locul de muncă (Castillo, 2018). ...
... ). În viziunea luiWhite (2010), MM este observat ca fiind un tip de comportament, care poate apărea în fiecare manager, fie din cauza presiunii puse pe umerii lui, fie din cauza dorinței de a obține performanță. Practic, în fiecare tip de lider se poate regăsi această latură de MM. ...
Article
Scopul acestei lucrări este de a determina și de a analiza legătura dintre stilurile de leadership (autoritar, democratic, laissez-faire) și fenomenul micromanagementului (MM) asupra motivației, performanței și autonomiei în mediul organizațional. În cadrul acestei cercetări, au participat un număr de 252 de respondenți, dintre care 71,8% ocupă funcții de execuție și 28,2 % ocupă funcții de conducere. Rezultatele au arătat faptul că fenomenul MM este prezent în organizații și totodată influențează stilurile de leadership autoritar și democratic, însă în cazul stilului laissez-faire, acesta nu este influențat. De asemenea, în cadrul cercetării au fost abordate efectele stilurilor de leadership asupra motivării, performanței și autonomiei. Astfel, un lider democratic reușește să influențeze în mai mare măsură aceste efecte, spre deosebire de liderii autoritari sau laissez-faire. Aceste rezultate pot fi utile pentru organizații, oferind informații despre conceptul de micromanagement și în același timp cum este aplicat de către lideri.
... Moreover, managers who have strong Theory X beliefs view workers as generally lazy, irresponsible, and unintelligent. As such, they may tend to micromanage more (White, 2010) Hypothesis 2 (H2): Micromanagement correlates positively with follower-rated (a) perfectionism (other-oriented) and (b) Theory X beliefs of their supervisors. ...
... Well-being Emotional exhaustion Self-reported physical symptoms Reports in business and mainstream media suggest that MM is related to poor psychological and physical health outcomes (Fisher et al., 2021). Being micromanaged has been linked to alienation (Doberstein & Charbonneau, 2022), burnout (Collins & Collins, 2002), fear (White, 2010), low selfesteem (Noguchi, 2017) and general psychological distress (Blanchard & Haccoun, 2020;Serrat, 2017). Notably, Noguchi (2017) suggests that sustained exposure to a micromanager substantially elevates stress hormones, resulting in ill health and ultimately hastening mortality. ...
... If leaders are not ambidextrous, they are not able to flexibly switch between the two behaviors, resulting in higher potency of either one of the behaviors. This means, that in this particular crisis, some leaders could engage only in closing behaviors, controlling and directing employees when working from home, resulting in extensive exploitation of employees rather than giving space to employee creativity (White, 2010). Extensive monitoring hinders employee performance and well-being. ...
... Extensive monitoring hinders employee performance and well-being. It might increase productivity over the short term (White, 2010). In the long term, however, it would hinder employee exploration and consequently their thriving. ...
... An additional advantage he gets is creating and depicting himself as a strong and baffling individual who is generally ready to take preferred choices over technocrats and experts (Khakwani & Case, 2012). Relatedly, the concept of micromanagement explains "the control of an enterprise in every particular and to the smallest detail, with the effect of obstructing progress and neglecting broader, higher-level policy issues" (White, 2010). ...
... In addition to Saqib et al. (2021) and Khakwani and Case (2012) findings, "micromanagement" is another fundamental characteristic of seth leadership found in this study. The overly interfering boss who second estimates each choice a subordinate makes, worries about the font size of a report, or investigates staff email baffles and discourages his badgering workforce, however, truly harms the efficiency and may risk the endurance of the organization in the long term (White, 2010). This study finds micromanagement as a tragic reality of seth leadership. ...
Article
In the South Asian context, characteristics of corporate culture relate to owners (seths). A scarcity of accountability instruments, transparency measures, and meritocracy is witnessed in the Pakistani corporate sector. Pakistan's textile industry is struggling to meet global standards of social and regulatory compliance majorly because of seth leadership. “Seth leadership”, a concept idiosyncratic to Pakistani organizations as a “socially constructed phenomenon” has been underrepresented in the academic literature. Particularly, little is known about the characteristics of seth leadership. Correspondingly, this study aims to explore the characteristics of seth‐leadership through the insider views and nuanced perspectives of social actors (i.e., employees) in seth‐culture textile organizations of Pakistan. Rooted in the social‐constructionism worldview and qualitative methodology 50 exploratory in‐depth interviews with senior managers and young professionals were conducted. The study explored 12 dominant characteristics of seth‐leadership, namely, informational politics, unwritten leadership, Informality, paternalism, favoritism, prioritizing seniority, resistance to change, control over information, quasi delegation of authorities, micromanagement, inefficient bureaucracy, and blame gaming. Results imply that the prevailing seth‐leadership requires special attention from state regulators, moreover legal and democratic norms must be introduced for employees associated with seth‐culture organizations. This study extends the extant literature merely discovering two attributes, and hence strives to contribute to the limited understanding of seth‐leadership characteristics in the leadership literature. Directions for future research and theoretical development are suggested.
... It is a management style characterized by excessive control from the manager to employees. White (2010) pointed out that micromanagers find it challenging to develop people rather than control them to do things in their way to ensure perfection. ...
... In practice, it is expected of the manager to monitor and supervise employees' activities to ensure the realization of the big pictures conceptualized but giving too much information, excess control, and zero tolerance for mistakes instill fear in employees (White, 2010). Fear of criticism from managers reduces employees' innovation and creative ability (Hyacinth, 2018). ...
Article
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The concept of micromanagement might appear suitable to managers, but it does more harm to employees than good. This study examined the detrimental implication of micromanagement on employee performance by obtaining data from one hundred and eighty-six non-teaching staff of a public school in Nigeria. A statistical package called RStudio was used to analyze the data. The study discovered that micromanagement harms employee productivity, retention, and satisfaction. The study suggests that managers should ensure employees have maximum autonomy when assigned tasks.
... They adore numbers, parcels of them. They mistake exactness for accuracy and they tend to dispirit employees in an organization from participating in the decision-making process [4]. On the other hand, a lot of previous studies emphasized on the uniqueness of the banks' work environment which requires special type of leadership that embeds accurate tasks implementation, constant monitoring and continuous follow-up which can facilitate the need of adopting the micromanagement style of leadership. ...
... Negative effect of micromanagement[4]. ...
... They mostly argue about the fact that they have deadlines to meet and have to submit reports with some level of quality -thus free from errors. Micromanagers, like many addicts and alcoholics, are the last people to accept that they are hooked on controlling others [1]. ...
... But have we? Maybe the noted management consultant and cartoon icon, Pogo, had it right when he quipped, "We have met the enemy...and he is us" [1]. It will be prudent to have managers first consider their ways as to ensure traits of micromanagement are nipped in the bud. ...
Article
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Majority of organisations aspire for maximum productivity and efficiency while achieving group objectives. These aspirations inform the kind of managers who are assigned various roles in the organisation. For such managers to succeed, they often require maximum input from subordinates. Nevertheless there are some unnecessary detailed pieces of information that managers demand, which negatively affect employees' performance. These unnecessary details, also referred to as Micromanagement, is felt only when managers find themselves at the receiving end or when they are being micromanaged. There is therefore the need for every manager to be able to perform self-assessment based on some features like the excessive need for information, stress and crisis management and how negative results are handled, among others, to be able to know when as a manager, one begins to micromanage. In addition to this, there is the need for managers to be able to draw the line between effective management and micromanagement and be able to apply the brakes when features associated with micromanagement are noticed.
... It is related to the basic requirements engineering principles in systems thinking. The violation of this principle results in micromanagement [29,159] and has an adverse affect on the main organizational asset, i.e. the people. ...
... For good decision making at all the levels, it is essential to have enough fact-based knowledge before taking decisions [66]. It is also vital that the decision maker is as close as possible to the decision's implementation level [29,59,91,159]. ...
Thesis
Technological advancements such as digitalization, cloud computing, and cyber-physical systems are transforming the present-day manufacturing industry. However, striving solely on the technological shift alone is insufficient to attain a sustainable competitive advantage. Therefore, an organization has to be treated as a socio-technical system where technological development has to go hand in hand with constant evolution of organizational aspects such as human development, knowledge management, organizational capability, etc. A manufacturing organization can also be considered as a socio-technical system of systems (SoS). It is vulnerable to the stochastic and emergent nature of the external environment, such as varying market conditions, diverse customer demands, etc. To achieve a deterministic and effective output in response to emergence, it is necessary to have an utmost awareness of the system behaviour itself. This research proposes that understanding the organizational behaviour and the interfaces that exists within the system could help the organizations in responding effectively to emergence. This in turn helps in transformation from a response mechanism based on presumptions to a fact-based approach by considering both the environmental emergence and internal organizational knowledge. The main focus of this work is on organizational capability and knowledge management within manufacturing SMEs. The first major contribution of this work is the utilization of Viable Systems Model (VSM) for understanding the behaviour of a manufacturing organization from a holistic perspective and identification of the knowledge interfaces (KIs) within the system. The type of knowledge required at each interface is determined and a KI mapping approach has been proposed to facilitate organizations in performing system analysis. The results are analysed using the empirical data for product development process from an industrial case study. Identification of organizational challenges for SMEs going through strategic transformations and their impact on the knowledge interfaces is the second main contribution of this work. The VSM-based KI mapping approach is used in identifying the knowledge gaps through visualization of respective KIs. Lastly, the work addresses common pitfalls and obstacles faced by the current manufacturing companies in terms of organizational capability and provides some guidelines and improvement suggestions for achieving an effective organization. Improved organizational capabilities of SMEs also result in enhancing regional growth through retaining competence and provision of jobs. Therefore this work can also be considered as a step towards strengthening social sustainability.
... Terms Describe Micromanagement a) Divide to Control-These tactics unquestionably destroy team unity and trust, resulting in a toxic work environment. They completely undermine collaboration and actively foster competitive dynamics (White, 2010). Accordingly, these tactics destroy team unity and trust, leading to a toxic work environment. ...
Article
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In higher education institutions, the management type shows micro-management, withholding information, thinking leadership positions, and dividing to control employees. Micro-management leaders demotivate employees and cause tension with team members, significantly reducing overall performance. This article discusses the pitfalls of management behaviors, such as "control freaks or micromanagement," which lead to high turnover, low team morale, job dissatisfaction, and mental health issues for other team members. A toxic workplace, characterized by negative leadership behaviors and harmful dynamics, can lead to low productivity and low employee well-being. Such situations are not uncommon to be characterized by secrecy, partiality, extreme control, and a lack of transparency. For instance, a 45 survey by the Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI) found that nearly 19% of workers have experienced some form of bullying, including verbal abuse, work sabotage, and intimidation (Namie & Namie, 2018). These actions can lead to high turnover rates, low morale, and decreased engagement. Addressing these micromanagement behaviors is crucial to promoting a healthy work environment.
... Terms Describe Micromanagement a) Divide to Control-These tactics unquestionably destroy team unity and trust, resulting in a toxic work environment. They completely undermine collaboration and actively foster competitive dynamics (White, 2010). Accordingly, these tactics destroy team unity and trust, leading to a toxic work environment. ...
Article
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Published by American Journals Publishing Center, USA. Website: https://www.american-journals.com/americanjournals. In higher education institutions, the management type shows micro-management, withholding information, thinking leadership positions, and dividing to control employees. Micro-management leaders demotivate employees and cause tension with team members, significantly reducing overall performance. This article discusses the pitfalls of management behaviors, such as "control freaks or micromanagement," which lead to high turnover, low team morale, job dissatisfaction, and mental health issues for other team members. A toxic workplace, characterized by negative leadership behaviors and harmful dynamics, can lead to low productivity and low employee well-being. Such situations are not uncommon to be characterized by secrecy, partiality, extreme control, and a lack of transparency. For instance, a 45 survey by the Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI) found that nearly 19% of workers have experienced some form of bullying, including verbal abuse, work sabotage, and intimidation (Namie & Namie, 2018). These actions can lead to high turnover rates, low morale, and decreased engagement. Addressing these micromanagement behaviors is crucial to promoting a healthy work environment.
... 마이크로 매니지먼트는 리더가 항상 업무에 관여하기를 원하고 조직 구성원이 원하는 방 식대로 업무를 수행하지 않을 경우 종종 업무를 직접 떠맡는 것이 특징이다 (Bielaszka-DuVernay, 2007;Stephen, 2020). 이러한 리더는 조직 구성원의 업무를 지속적 으로 확인하고, 구성원에게 해야 할 일과 그 방법을 지속적으로 지시한다 (White, 2010). 또 한, 업무의 세부 사항에 세심한 주의를 기울이면서 업무 위임을 꺼리고, 의사 결정 과정에 서도 조직 구성원의 참여를 중요시한다는 특징을 가진다(Bielaszka-DuVernay, 2007;Stephen, 2020 (Brandebo, 2021;Roneney & Gottlieb, 2007;Shaw et al., 2011Shaw et al., , 2014. ...
Article
The purpose of this study is to validate the micromanagement measurement developed by Sulphey and Upadhyay (2019). We translated the micromanagement measurement for validation and conducted content validity analysis. The preliminary study has showed that the subfactor structure of the instrument items was verified. In the main study with 392 individuals from Korean employees. Our analysis included factor analysis, reliability analysis, and Rasch model. The results indicated that one item with a low factor loading was removed, leaving the measurement of 14 items in four factors. The study revealed a significant association between micromanagement and organizational silence, as well as passive aggression in Korean organizations. We discuss the expected interpretations, practical applications and theoretical implications. Based on the findings, theoretical and practical implications were further discussed.
... The identified solutions in the clinical supervision context were entrusting autonomy, clear communication, and organizational management [17]. It is important to recognize micromanagement as a phenomenon with consequences reaching beyond individual wellbeing, including organizational dysfunction and poorer employee performance [18]. ...
Article
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Limited research exists on the preparedness of pharmacy academic administrators for their roles. This cross-sectional survey aimed to explore the self-perceptions of pharmacy academic administrators, including deans, associate deans, assistant deans, department chairs, and directors, within United States-based Colleges or Schools of Pharmacy. Participants answered questions regarding their demographics, self-perceived readiness for administrative roles, self-perceived leadership skills, and strategies used to develop these skills. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, and subgroup comparisons were made using Student’s t-test for normally distributed continuous variables, Mann–Whitney tests for ordinal variables or non-normally distributed continuous variables, and Chi-squared tests for nominal variables. A total of 193 responses were analyzed. Respondents reported feeling least prepared in two areas: entrepreneurial revenue and handling grievances and appeals. There were gender differences noted in preparedness to conduct performance reviews, manage unit finances, and develop entrepreneurial revenue, with men rating themselves significantly higher than women in all three areas. Despite high self-ratings of leadership skills in the overall cohort, significant gender differences were noted in micromanagement with men rating themselves lower than women. Seeking advice from senior colleagues was the most used development strategy, and women showed a significantly higher preference for programs facilitated by professional organizations. This study contributes valuable insights into the preparedness of pharmacy academic administrators to inform future strategies that better support individuals to be successful in their roles.
... For example, P8 noted that interactions around the office had evolved into "condensed 15 minutes of talking" (P8) which were work-focused and without small-talk. However, informal and spontaneous interactions disappeared: Note that while this quote ties in more strictly with coordination cost and overhead, the ability to quickly interrupt to poll fine-grained information is also a common theme in micro-management [11,297]. However, also note that informal interactions help in building trust which is essential for collaborative work [213]. ...
Thesis
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Technological systems and infrastructures form the bedrock of modern society and it is system administrators (sysadmins) who configure, maintain and operate these infrastructures. More often than not, they do so behind the scenes. The work of system administration tends to be unseen and, consequently, not well known. After all, do you think of your IT help-desk when everything is working just fine? Usually, people reach out for help when something is not working as expected or when they need something. A lot of work and effort goes into ensuring that systems are working as expected most of the time and, paradoxically, this smooth functioning results in the invisibilization of the work and effort that went into it. This PhD research focuses on system administration work and what that entails in day-to-day tasks. Instead of proposing technical and social solutions, we try to better understand the “problem” that these proposed solutions are meant to solve. Drawing from safety science research and feminist research approaches, we perform a qualitative exploration of sysadmins’ work. We center their experiences via an in-depth interview investigation and a focus group study. We identify and describe the coordination mechanisms and gender considerations embedded in their work. We shed light on care work as part of sysadmin work and the phenomenon of double invisibility that is experienced by sysadmins who are not cis men. The thesis wraps up with a set of recommendations for moving toward safe and equitable work environments for sysadmins.
... Micromanagement has been defined in the literature as, "control of an enterprise in every particular and to the smallest detail, with the effect of obstructing progress and neglecting broader, higher-level policy issues" (White, 2010, p. 71). Research indicates micromanagement can lead to turnover in an organization (White, 2010). Although limited micromanaging was suggested from the perspective of ADs in previous research, it may be beneficial to take a more holistic approach. ...
... Nonetheless, supervisory practices associated with micromanagement mostly engender negative perceptions and, as such, the field of medicine seems more tolerant of this approach to clinical training than fields outside medicine, such as organizational management, public administration, and political science [27]. In the field of organizational management, Peter Drucker's 1946 work on democracy in management (decentralizing and delegating more authority to employees) and Douglas McGregor's 1960 Theory X manager (a manager who is poor at proper delegating), criticize micromanagement as a strong disrupter of organizational life and an organizational pathology [28]. However, in the health professions, the perception of micromanagement is still controversial due to the criticality of patient safety although it was reported that micromanagement does not improve patient safety and outcomes [8,9]. ...
Article
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Micromanagement in clinical supervision in health professions education generally refers to supervision characterized by unproductive excessive control and attention to detail. It can affect autonomy, competence, well-being of learners, teamwork, and ultimately patient care. Despite its potential negative impact on learners and patients, no comprehensive review of this phenomenon has been conducted. This scoping review aims to explore the breadth of extant literature concerning micromanagement in clinical supervision in health professions education and map the body of research on the topic. We followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis: Extension for Scoping Review (PRISMA-ScR). We searched eight databases, and the final review and analysis comprised 12 articles that examined micromanagement in clinical supervision across health professions education. Micromanage-ment was conceptualized as ineffective supervisory practices such as undue scrutiny, excessive control, domination, and ineffectual leadership. Conversely, alternatives to micromanagement included entrusting or granting autonomy, coaching for independent practice, and providing effective supervision and leadership. Overall, micromanage-ment was attributed to individual behavioral and personality factors, such as distrust, perfectionism, self-conviction, and low self-esteem. The consequences of micromanagement included inadequacies in professional development and well-being of trainees and patient care, and organizational dysfunction. Suggested solutions included entrusting or empowering trainees with encouragement and clear communication, open communication efforts by trainees, organizational management for quality supervision, and faculty's valuing both clinical and educational goals. Current literature on micromanagement-in the context of clinical supervision in health professions education-was found to be sparse, implying a need for more rigorous research and discourse on this understudied area. The findings can be used to recognize, solve, and prevent the prevalent, and often unrecognized, phenomena of micromanagement, which may improve clinical supervision, the professional development of trainees and faculty, organizational management , and ultimately patient care.
... When a good manager is micromanaged from above, he may feel compelled to micromanage his own people, causing a negative ripple effect among supervisors and employees' struggle to make the few choices that are accessible. Micromanagement jeopardizes production and quality, lowers work satisfaction and morale, and drives away the best and brightest employees (White, 2010). ...
Article
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Proper management is vital in the achievement of an organization's vision and sustainability. Several researches have shown that one management style, micromanagement, has been receiving particular attention in the corporate world due to its notoriety. Micromanagement tends to control the employees in almost all aspects; igniting employee frustration which leads to adverse effect in the company by and large. Results of micromanagement include suppressed creativity, low morale of employees and an increase in employee turnover. However, some authors argue the significance of micromanagement in specific circumstances. Thus, this study is aimed at identifying the level of effectivity of micromanagement as it relates to teachers and middle managers in the academic sector in terms of the following: compliance, productivity, competence, and job satisfaction. The study used descriptive correlational design. The researcher employed a complete census of the respondents. These are teachers and middle managers in the Basic Education Department who are from the kindergarten, elementary, junior high school and senior high school levels, with 48 teachers and 12 middle managers respectively. Findings of the study signify that micromanagement is effective in promoting compliance and productivity, moderately effective in terms of competence, and slightly ineffective when it comes to job satisfaction. Furthermore, the study also yielded no significant difference when the respondents are grouped according to profile. Similarly, there is no significant difference between the teachers and middle managers on the level of effectivity of micromanagement on this basis, it is recommended that middle managers must reconcile the use of micromanagement to uphold compliance and productivity without neglecting the teachers' competence and job satisfaction.
... Most importantly, ambidextrous leadership has been recognized as an approach that is well-suited to deal with more complex challenges in the organization, and is considered as leadership practice that promotes employee well-being (Kraft, 2018). Thus, if some leaders would engage only in closing behaviors, controlling and directing employees when working from home, it would result in extensive exploitation of employees rather than giving space to employee creativity (White, 2010). Oppositely, if leaders would give employees the complete freedom of performing work related tasks, not monitoring their goal attainment, giving no structure, it could result in overwhelmed and confused employees. ...
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The new world of work has seen many employees adapting to the dynamics of working from home. With the change in location, the factors that promote employee thriving while working have altered as well. Drawing on the literature on thriving and broaden-and-build theory, this research examines how family-work affect helps employee thriving through increased exploration, with conditional effect of ambidextrous leader. Based on two studies ( n = 483), results confirm the proposed model. In Study 1, the mediating effect of exploration in the relationship between family-work affect and thriving is supported on a sample of university students. Study 2 corroborates the mediating effect and supports the moderating role of ambidextrous leadership among employees. Specifically, the positive effects of family affective experiences on an individual’s exploration were greater under high levels of ambidextrous leadership behaviors. The practical recommendations offered are intended to increase thriving while working from home.
... Delegation refers to senior managers' willingness to assign authorities to subordinates to perform certain tasks with empowerment to access the required resources Akinfolarin, [2] Delegation constitutes a vital part of leadership process used by managers Sengul, Gimeno & Dial [24]. The more delegation is practiced in a firm, the less the practice of micromanagement White, [25]. Delegation is the organizational process of transfer of authority from a supervisor to a subordinate Koontz and Weihrich, [18]. ...
... However, the rest (n = 70) stated that they could not achieve well-being due to some difficulties such as micromanagement, a high number of teaching hours and financial situations, especially in private schools. In fact, micromanagement, which means the school administration's control of every detail (White, 2010), and financial issues were mostly valid for the teachers working in private schools (n = 102). For example, participant 134 said, 'I have not been working in a school where our managers respect us, and they are only monitoring and warning us'. ...
Article
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This study investigates the interplay between the concepts of teachers' autonomy, well-being and teacher efficacy by drawing on the perceptions of primary, secondary and high school English teachers working in private and state schools in Turkey. The overarching aim of this study is to investigate these three factors, as perceived by English teachers across school levels and types and thus to identify common experiences among them. The study employed a mixed-methods approach. Using open-ended questions and the scales of teachers' autonomy, well-being and teacher efficacy, the data were collected from 293 English teachers. This study found that autonomy is strongly correlated with teacher efficacy. The findings also show that the teachers' levels of autonomy in state schools were higher. Similarly, findings also indicate that the autonomy secondary school teachers experienced was higher than that of teachers working in primary schools. The study makes a contribution to the field by drawing conclusions about the interplay of these three factors.
... For example, Participant P8 noted that interactions around the office had evolved into "condensed 15 minutes of talking" (P8) which were work-focused and without small-talk. However, informal and spontaneous interactions disappeared: Note that while this quote ties in more strictly with coordination cost and overhead, the ability to quickly interrupt to poll fine-grained information is also a common theme in micro-management [2,53]. However, also note that informal interactions help in building trust which is essential for collaborative work [43]. ...
Article
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The ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic made working from home -- wherever working remotely is possible -- the norm for what had previously been office-based jobs across the world. This change in how we work created a challenging situation for system administrators (sysadmins), as they are the ones building and maintaining the digital infrastructure our world relies on. In this paper, we examine how system administration work changed early in the pandemic from sysadmins' personal perspectives, through semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis. We find that sysadmins faced a two-sided crisis: While sysadmins' own work environment changed, they also had to react to the new situation and facilitate stable options to work online for themselves and their colleagues, supporting their users in adapting to the crisis. This finding embeds into earlier work on the connection between IT (security) work and the notion of 'care', where we substantiate these earlier findings with results from a repeatable method grounded in coordination theory. Furthermore, while we find that sysadmins perceived no major changes in the way they work, by consecutively probing our interviewees, we find that they did experience several counter-intuitive effects on their work. This includes that while day-to-day communication became inherently more difficult, other tasks were streamlined by the remote working format and were seen as having become easier. Finally, by structuring our results according to a model of coordination and communication, we identify changes in sysadmins' coordination patterns. From these we derive recommendations for how system administration work can be coordinated, ranging beyond the immediate pandemic response and the transition to any 'new normal' way of working.
... Ministry of Education and other stakeholders in education was the 15 micromanaging of teachers in mainstream schools. Micromanagement now 16 commonly refers to the control of an enterprise in every way, down to the 17 smallest detail, with the effect of obstructing progress (White, 2010). As 18 teachers were caught up with producing records for the high accountability 19 demands, children"s needs were neglected. ...
Article
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This study investigated the learning and socializing experiences and opportunities of children with Special Education Needs and/or Disabilities (SEN/D) in two mainstream primary schools in Guyana. This study was conducted using an ethnographic approach over two semesters in 2018 employing participant observation and unstructured interviews. The data gathered was analyzed using situational analysis as posited by Adele Clarke. It revealed the experiences of children with SEN/D through their voices and their teachers. It showed how the barriers present in the two schools impact these children. The study also revealed that the children often find mainstream schooling more unpleasant than children without SEN/D. It suggests that the culture, discourses and discursive practices of the two schools are not accommodating for children with SEN/D. These children face multiple barriers in the condition, structure and organization of the two schools.
... Micromanagement can result in disappointment plus demoralization associated with workers. Micromanagers often foolish over the company, plus, such companies, good workers will certainly keep, as well as the business may spin out of control down hill (White, 2010). Collins plus Collins (2002) additional that this expenses associated with extensive micromanagement might be higher. ...
...  Micromanagement: Dataveillance can contribute to micromanagement. To micromanage means to try to take control of an enterprise in every particular and to the smallest detail, with the effect of obstructing progress and neglecting broader, higher-level entrepreneurial and policy issues (White, 2010). Prescriptive analytics enables new forms of "nudging" (Thaler and Sunstein, 2008), an approach to guide human behavior based on insights from behavioral economics. ...
Article
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Ideas about the introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to business are regularly being associated with modern, agile and participative approaches of management and leadership. But in everyday business life the dark side of management continues to remain influential. Leaders that show personality traits like machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy and sadism are commonplace. This viewpoint shows that the combination of augmentation and automation that AI can offer makes it technologically feasible toscale dark managerial methods and to eliminate competition. It concludes by recommending further research in support of the Human Movement (Hamel and Zanini, 2018).
... Micromanagement, which refers to the control of every minute organisational detail, that resultantly hinders progress and disregards wider, higher-level policy issues, may be a further consequence of bureaucratic LM (White, 2010). Signs of micromanagement are apparent within the hypothetical scenario. ...
Article
Purpose: This case study aims to explore how leadership and management applies to a hypothetical scenario, focussing on a dental practice. As a teaching exercise, it may enable dentists and allied workers to reflect on the leadership and management styles used within their workplaces, and on their own abilities. Design/methodology/approach: The hypothetical scenario considers a dental practice, its organisational structure, and leadership and management practices. The contemporary leadership and management theories of transformational leadership and contingency management are next discussed. These are then compared with the practices used in the dental practice. The case study concludes with recommendations. Findings: The hypothetical scenario reveals that bureaucratic and transactional leadership and management culture exists within the dental practice, which may be attributable to many factors. The case study suggests that no single manner of leadership and management is completely correct or greater than another. There may be a need for bureaucratic, transactional, transformational, contingency and other approaches, and only if they shall be used in the best interests of the workforce and workplace. Originality/value: Many dental practice workers may be oblivious to their own leadership and management techniques, and thus, the resultant impact on teammates. Negative approaches may contribute towards poor morale and a high turnover of staff. To become more skilful at applying certain approaches to given situations, dentists and allied workers may well need to pursue continuing professional development training in leadership and management.
... On the other hand, when teams report low potency, the fact that managers interact frequently with team members could reinforce their sense of low self-efficacy, which in turn could reduce positive team mood (e.g., Luszczynska, Guti errez-Doña, & Schwarzer, 2005). According to White (2010), managers who oversee their workers very closely and spend an excessive amount of time supervising their work and telling them what to do and how to do it (i.e., micromanagers) can frustrate and demoralize workers. Thus, excessive interactions with team members may reduce the team's sense of effectiveness, especially in low potency teams. ...
Article
Based on contradictory arguments about whether the frequency of the interactions between team managers and the teams they manage is positive or negative for teams, we hypothesize a curvilinear relationship. Focusing on positive team mood and based on the leadership literature and the conservation of resources theory, we hypothesize an inverted‐U‐shaped relationship. In addition, adding arguments from the substitutes for leadership theory, we propose that this curvilinear relationship is moderated by team potency and tenure. Hypotheses were tested using panel data collected in a sample of 55 work teams by means of hierarchical non‐lineal regression. Results show that, as expected, the relationship between the frequency of the interactions and positive team mood was curvilinear and moderated by team potency and team tenure. As expected, the curve became increasingly convex downward as team tenure increased. However, for team potency, the results were contrary to what was expected. The results have important implications for planning the frequency of managers’ interactions with their teams, and they indicate the importance of considering team tenure and potency as contextual moderators. Practitioner points • Our study shows that the frequency with which team managers interact with team members to discuss work, organizational, and team functioning issues is a relevant predictor of positive team mood. • More frequent interactions do not always foster positive team mood. Average interaction levels, as perceived by team members, are more effective than low or high levels. • Managers should adapt the frequency of the interactions to the characteristics of the teams managed, particularly their tenure and potency.
... Micromanagement refers to the excessive managerial monitoring and controlling of employees' routine decisions and activities (Austin & Larkey, 1992;White, 2010). Managers utilizing this strategy provide stepwise instructions and expect salespeople within their span of control to frequently report to and consult with them . ...
Article
Sales practice and scholarship have each called for optimizing the manner in which sales managers strategically interject themselves in the sales process. As a unique approach that reflects the high incidence rate of failure within sales, managers may strategize for salespeople to fail fast as an agile implementation of intelligent failure. Fail fast strategy allows managers to intervene early on in the business-to-business sales process in order to optimize resources and exert greater control over failures within their sales teams. With this strategy in mind, the following questions remain: Does fail fast strategy have a beneficial or deleterious effect on salesperson behaviors? What organizational- and individual-level factors direct a sales manager's strategic attention toward failing fast? The authors use an attention-based view to theorize the drivers of fail fast strategy, as well as investigate the moderating effect of sales force resources on the relationship between fail fast strategy and salesperson extra-role behaviors. The authors test the model using survey data of 274 business-to-business sales managers. The conceptualization, operationalization, and theory around fail fast strategy contribute to a better understanding of failing fast in sales. The results provide contributions to theory and practice as well as guidance for future research opportunities.
Chapter
As new technologies and ways of working emerge, there does not always require completely new ways of doing things. Sometimes, adapting to changes requires reanalyzing the old ways of doing things to see how these effective methods can be applied in new situations or in this case new VR environments. VR work environments require different structures and skills than traditional work environments. There are best practices and strategies that have been effective for learning and career development in traditional environments that have been adapted in this chapter to meet the needs of VR employees. The skills development strategies and factors of relationship building, networking, effective communication, skill development techniques, personal branding, ethics, and understanding of organizational culture when aligned with accumulation of information, change in behavior, improved performance, change in knowledge, attitudes, and skills, a new sense of meaning, cognitive restructuring, and personal transformation all contribute to successful VR career development of employees when supported by organization leaders.
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This study examines Micromanagement behavior and its effect on organizational commitment and Job stress, as well as the moderating effect of Hostile attribution bias. Data were collected from sample size research by Krejcie and Morgan (1970), N:360 and S:186 respondents from two factories under the owner's manager in Mashhad-Iran. Data was collected and analyzed using (Smart PLS software) to test the measurement and substantive models. Results indicate that Micromanagement is a Significant Negative related to organizational commitment, and Micromanagement is a Significant Positive for job stress. Job stress Negatively mediates between Micromanagement and organizational commitment; therefore, Hostile attribution Bias can Moderate the relationship between job stress and organizational commitment. We specifically investigated the negative behavior of Micromanagement in the Mashhad industry scope. A manager with micromanaging skills must understand and accept the impact of his behavior and communicate effectively. This is the first examination of the role of Hostile attribution Bias as a Moderator in the relationship between Job stress and organizational commitment related to micromanaging, are in Iran. In this country, Monitoring tools are favorite by Managers. _________________________________________________________________________Keywords: Micromanagement Organizational Commitment Job stress Hostile attribution bias
Article
The primary purpose of women's micromanagement in private higher education institutions in the UK is to attempt to define micromanagement, examining the underlying factors, characteristics and outcomes of such micromanagement practices. This topic is essential for understanding the dynamics within private higher educational institutions and how gender-based management behaviours may influence various aspects of private higher education. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) is a rigorous research methodology used to gather, analyse, and synthesise existing academic literature onWomen Micromanagement in Private Higher Education UK. We used a systematic and structured approach to identifying, selecting, and evaluating relevant studies on Women Micromanagement in Private Higher Education in the UK from various sources such as Google Scholar, ERIC, JSTOR, and Science Direct, including websites such as Higher Education Statistic Agency (HESA.) The findings of a systematic review of "Women Micromanagement in Private Higher Education in the UK” revealed several significant insights and patterns in the existing literature. The review uncovered a gender disparity in leadership roles generally and within private higher education institutions in the UK, particularly with women often occupying middle management positions while being underrepresented in top leadership roles. Literature also revealed that micromanagement could be good or bad; the negative side is that it drains productivity, inflicts fear, and includes excessive control, which is seen as demotivating. Micromanagement can be advantageous in certain short-term situations. It is not right to label women as micromanagers, and males could also be micromanagers. However, not all studies support the idea that women are more likely to micromanage. Keywords: Women (Gender), Leadership, Private Higher Education
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Various styles of leadership have the potential for positive and negative influence on employees and organization. The monograph offers a new approach and proposes the systematic analysis of negative leadership traits and behaviors through the broadening of existing approaches (based on employees’ orientation and organizational orientation) by analyzing them together with a third dimension: leader’s traits, which will allow us to analyze the intent of the leader. Based on this approach, the monograph introduces the term: fake leadership, characterized by an emphasis on individual goals of the leader (regardless of their importance for the organization) coupled with intentional anti-employees and anti-organizational behaviours. Such leaders operate with intent to engage in negative behaviors towards employees and organization, simultaneously aiming at hiding such intent. The monograph introduces and empirically verifies various models explaining the mechanisms, through which fake leadership negatively influences job performance of employees and organizational reliability based on intraorganizational trust and positive job-related attitudes (work motivation, job satisfaction, work engagement, organizational commitment), as well as negative job-related attitudes (work disengagement, job dissatisfaction, work demotivation), tend to hide errors, which is coupled with the number of management and employees’ errors. These models reference the concept of authentic leadership, which is chosen as a positive alternative to the described fake leadership.
Chapter
Relational goods may influence the success of digital transformation. To do so, it is not only necessary to change the way employees relate each other, but it is also necessary for managers to implement ad hoc strategies to foster engagement and commitment in respect of change. Managers then need to change the way they are leading the company, mostly by changing the strategies they use to make knowledge flow within different areas. In the case they will be successful, and the new management style is appreciated by employees, it will be possible for them to develop an organizational environment capable to react to disruption caused by digital transformation.KeywordsDigital transformationOrganizational changeHuman Resource ManagementMicromanagementStrategic changeDigital technologiesRelational goods
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Human resources (HR) are a fundamental asset and vital resource in achieving organizational goals and objectives. Appropriate understanding of the workforce and their management and strategic decision-making to train and enhance them are important considerations for supply chain firms. Through examining international human resource management (IHRM), the chapter discusses the international nature of supply chain firms and how this has not only brought increased competition for talent but added complexities and cultural dimensions that need to be appropriately managed. Strategic human resource management (SHRM), workforce analytics, and various environmental forces – customer demands, complexity in global supply chains, and uncertainty from global pandemics – and their impact on HRM are also discussed. Digital transformation of the supply chain has also meant that HRM practices may be disrupted. The chapter covers these various issues and the challenges facing supply chain firms along with identifying key trends in HR practice. It also highlights key managerial concerns for the future of HR and how these may affect supply chain firms.
Book
Leadership is viewed as a phenomenon allowing advantages for organizations and their success. Although much research has been done on the concept of leadership, many studies do not include the different styles, perspectives, and contexts of leadership. As such, this book aims to fill this gap by combining several studies on leadership from different perspectives. The various chapters address such topics as millennial leaders, Theory X style leadership, leadership in the turbulent environment, emotional intelligence, and much more. This volume shows how new insights about leadership can stimulate organizational development in various countries and regions worldwide.
Chapter
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While not everyone is born with the talent to lead, many businesses have been plagued by accidental leaders. Such leaders have no prior experience managing others. A bad leader can do more harm than good to a company. They are frequently the cause why employees decide to leave a company. Controlling and manipulative leaders have a negative influence on employee morale and have the potential to damage the organization’s corporate culture. Furthermore, employees do not depart because they are unsatisfied with their jobs. They leave the company because they are unhappy with their leaders. This chapter explores micromanagement as a Theory X style and identifies indicators such as lack of trust and high-staff turnover as the primary reasons why leaders fail to “lead” the “ship.” The chapter concludes that effective leadership necessitates leadership skills and training.
Article
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This study investigated the impact of career planning, employee autonomy, and manager recognition on employee engagement through the lens of the social exchange theory. A survey of 120 employees in US small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) was conducted and a multiple regression model was created to answer the research questions seeking to know if career planning, employee autonomy, and manager recognition contributed to employee engagement and if so, to what extent. The results supported the theoretical model of social exchange as well as the hypothesized relationships. In other words, data confirmed the existence of a statistically significant relationship between the independent variables: career planning, employee autonomy, and manager recognition, and the dependent variable, employee engagement. Career planning was identified as a better contributor to engagement as compared to the other two predictors. Manager recognition, while contributing less than career planning, was deemed a better contributor compared to employee autonomy. These findings offer implications for research on social exchange theory as an asset for the organization and suggest that in SMEs, managers need to have career planning discussions with their direct reports. These discussions set employees' hopes of a promotion and increase their levels of engagement and involvement. Recognizing employees on a regular basis for a job well-done increases their sense of achievement toward their hoped promotion, thus helping to keep them continuously engaged.
Research
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This paper spotlights the concept of "micromanager" with regards to managerial relationship between managers and employees. Micromanager can lead its co-workers to be less productivity. Monitoring each and every working detail results a daunting mission and a bad habit. Intervening and setting job priorities for employees could create a convulsive relationship between the manager and the followers. The aim of this subject review is to clarify the characteristics or symptoms of micromanager and what effects that can bring on the functional relationship in the long term. That can be perceived through knowing at what level of involving, collaborating, directing, communicating, and monitoring become micromanagers from the perspective of employees. The significance of this paper includes some advice and guidance about how to deal with micromanager to avoid engaging in functional conflicts. The review concluded what the micromanager should do in order to instill confidence within his or her staff.
Article
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This article presents a theoretical and empirical comparison of delegation and participation. Although the two processes have sometimes been treated as interchangeable, delegation and participation have evolved from two different theoretical perspectives and are used by managers under different sets of conditions. Two studies are reported that examined these differences. The experimental study examined situational factors in Vroom and Yetton's (1973) leadership model that predict differences in managers' reported preferences for delegation or participation. Results indicated that decision importance, subordinate information, and subordinate goal congruence explained 23% of the variance in managers' preferences. The correlational study examined similar situational predictors of supervisors' reported use of delegation and participation with subordinates. These results largely confirmed the findings of the experimental study and also showed supervisor workload as a significant predictor. In addition, objective measures of subordinate performance significantly correlated with the use of delegation but not with participation. The implications of the findings for research on participative decision making are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
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The use of an alternative to the research strategies employed for the past 20 yrs and more to investigate leadership produced results which question the traditional models and open new avenues for empirical exploration. Approaching leadership as an exchange relationship which develops within the vertical dyad over time during role making activities, this longitudinal study found that the degree of latitude that a superior granted to a member to negotiate his role was predictive of subsequent behavior on the part of both superior and member. Contrary to traditional views of leadership, superiors typically employed both leadership and supervision techniques within their units. With a select subset of their members, superiors developed leadership exchanges (influence without authority), and with others, superiors developed only supervision relationships (influence based primarily upon authority). Some of the many implications of these findings are discussed.
Article
This research examined predictors and consequences of delegation. Participants were 44 supervisors and 198 claims adjusters employed in 19 branch offices of a large insurance company. Delegation was operationally defined as the dollar level of authority exercised by adjusters to settle claims. Results indicated that supervisors' perceptions of subordinates, the volume of supervisors' workloads, and the importance of decisions were significant predictors of delegation. In addition, subordinates' job competence and congruence between supervisors' and subordinates' goals moderated the effects of delegation on subordinates' job performance. Neither supervisors' personalities or predispositions to share authority nor subordinates' satisfaction were significantly related to delegation. Implications of the findings for research on participative decision making and leadership are discussed.
Article
Few studies have identified determinants of delegation and consultation. To investigate this question further, we surveyed managers and subordinates in two samples and interviewed managers individually or in focus groups. The use of delegation and consultation with individual subordinates was determined in part by characteristics of the subordinates and the manager–subordinate relationship. More delegation was used for a subordinate who was competent, shared the leader's task objectives, had worked longer for the manager, was a supervisor also, and had a favorable exchange relationship with the manager. Consultation with a subordinate was predicted by goal congruence, subordinate job level, and quality of the leader–member exchange relationship. The managers acknowledged that developing subordinates and empowering them to do their work were important reasons for delegation, but many managers were reluctant to give up control over important decisions or assign an important task to an inexperienced subordinate. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Article
Employed facet analysis with 327 male and 80 female subordinates in industry, business, and academia. Leadership styles were defined as a function of 3 facets--the leader's behavior, the locus of power, and the locus of information within a management-subordinate system. Five leadership styles were defined by these facets--direction, negotiation, consultation, participation, and delegation. The common order that exists within each facet determined a partially ordered set of leader styles. The intercorrelation matrix of leader styles, based on survey data, was subjected to the Guttman-Lingoes smallest space analysis, which transforms correlation coefficients to distance in an Euclidean space. The hypothesized partial order relations among the different leader styles were accurately reflected in the analysis. This lends support to the potential of facet analysis in studying leadership styles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)