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The Micromanagement Disease: Symptoms, Diagnosis, and Cure
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.
... 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: ...
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. ...
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). ...
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. ...
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). ...
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: ...
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). ...
... A poor working environment hinders employee engagement, reduces motivation levels and affects employees' overall performance (Devi 2009). Organisations that experience high turnover rates are often characterised by hierarchies and micromanagerial styles that decrease job satisfaction and present challenges to retaining talented employees (White 2010). Leaders who micromanage hinder their employees' development, decrease productivity and drive talented employees to leave by not allowing them discretion in conducting their work (White 2010). ...
... Organisations that experience high turnover rates are often characterised by hierarchies and micromanagerial styles that decrease job satisfaction and present challenges to retaining talented employees (White 2010). Leaders who micromanage hinder their employees' development, decrease productivity and drive talented employees to leave by not allowing them discretion in conducting their work (White 2010). ...
... The practices here involved working in traditional hierarchies, working with outdated technology and dealing with the array of affirmative action strategies requiring adherence to by organisations. White (2010) observes that micromanagerial style results in a decrease of job satisfaction with attendant high turnover rates. Khoele and Daya (2014) suggest that affirmative action strategies can cause frustration in nonaffirmative action candidates because career expectations may be thwarted. ...
Orientation: Retaining and developing talented top- and middle-level managers who possess organisational-specific skills and experience, promotes competitive advantage for organisations and is a long-term investment.
Research purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore challenges to retention and effective retention strategies for top- and middle-level managers.
Motivation for the study: Human resource managers are facing difficulties retaining managers due to ineffective retention strategies. This study aims to provide insight into suggested strategies to retain such managers
Research design, approach and method: A cross-sectional survey, using an instrument developed from the literature, was completed by 97 human resource management professionals registered with the South African Board of People Practices. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted as well as group comparisons.
Main findings: Results revealed that leadership and performance management practices are considered to be effective retention strategies for top- and middle-level managers.
Practical/managerial implications: Having a deeper understanding of effective retention strategies for top- and middle-level managers can assist HR professionals in retaining these employees.
Contribution/value add: This study adds to the insights of HR professionals, line managers and leaders in organisations regarding retention challenges and effective retention strategies for top- and middle-level managers.
Key words: Leadership; Performance management, South Africa; Top- and middle-level managers
... 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). ...
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. ...
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]. ...
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.
... According to Bacon (2006), micromanagement occurs as a result of high power distance, high levels of centralisation, focus on details at the expense of bigger picture, and lack of employee participation. A few major causes of micromanagement, according to Li and Khalid (2015) include the personality of the manager (Badger et al., 2009), the attributes of the subordinates (Rosen and Jerdee, 1977) and the prevalent corporate culture (White, 2010). Each of the cause is now discussed in detail: ...
... In such a culture, employees have a conviction that only followers will be rewarded and recognised. There are certain organisations whose structure is such that it breeds micromanagement (Hoelscher, 1987;White, 2010). For instance, an organisational structure having high power distance provides senior managers extensive power and control over their subordinates, and consequent micromanagement (Khatri, 2009). ...
... 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]. ...
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). ...
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. ...
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'. ...
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]. ...
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. ...
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. ...
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. ...
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. ...
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 . ...
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.
... Micromanagement is where a leader scrutinizes the smallest of tasks, leading to low morale, productivity, and individual autonomy (White, 2010). This principle can be extended to stewardship for quality. ...
National Ministries of Health in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs) have a key role to play as stewards of the quality agenda in their health systems. This paper uses a previously developed six‐point framework for stewardship (strategy formulation, intersectoral collaboration, governance and accountability, health system design, policy and regulation, and intelligence generation) and identifies specific examples of activities in LMICs in each of these domains, pitfalls to avoid, and possible solutions to these pitfalls. Many LMICs now have quality strategies with clear vision statements. There are good examples of quality agencies and donor collaboration councils to coordinate activities across different sectors. There are multiple options for accountability, including public reporting, community accountability structures, results‐based payment, accreditation, and inspection. To improve health system design, available tools include decision support tools, task‐shifting models, supply chain management, and programs to train quality improvement staff. Policy options include legislation on disclosure of adverse events, and regulations to ensure skills of health care providers. Lastly, health information tools include patient registries, facility surveys, hospital discharge abstracts, standardized population and patient surveys, and dedicated agencies for reporting on quality. Policy‐makers can use this article to identify options for driving the quality agenda and address anticipated implementation barriers.
... Questions of professional burnout are studied by Awa, Plaumann and Walter (2010); Chan (2011); Halbesleben, Osburn and Mumford (2006); and others. White (2010) considers the source of dysfunction to be excessively detailed management in the actions of managers. Dysfunctions linked to various types of organisational cultures are analysed by Fink, Dauber and Yolles (2012). ...
The topic of organisational pathology is surprisingly absent in literature on management, especially when bearing in mind the theoretical and practical import of such questions. The intention of the author is to fill in this gap, at least partially. The paper is based on an analysis of literature and an empirical research conducted by the author. The research applied partially structured interviews as its method. These interviews were conducted with entrepreneurs and managers of various levels. They made possible the drawing of conclusions relating to conditions behind the genesis and growth of selected organisational pathologies in a situation of economic downswing. The article briefly presents the concept and influence of pathology on the functioning of an organisation. The author concentrates on the causes of the phenomenon and presents them from various perspectives. It is during times of economic downswing that an increase in unethical behaviour, including corruption, mobbing as well as others, becomes particularly visible. Also noticeable is concentrating on limiting costs, which can sometimes reach pathological scale. This can lead to a permanent loss of pro-development potential by the organisation. Moreover, numerous pathological phenomena emerge at the tangent point of the organisation and its surroundings. The source of many undesirable phenomena in the organisation and in its relations with its surroundings is a fall in trust, which makes its appearance in crisis situations. More often than not, managers facing a situation in which they have no choice perpetuate organisational pathologies, whilst, at the same time, being aware of the lack of validity of their actions. However, a more frequent source of problems is the differences in perspective in perceiving organisational phenomena by various actors and stakeholders.
... Employees in this profile may be poor performers who devalue and reject the constructive (negative) feedback they receive due to ego or image management concerns (Ashford et al., 2003). Alternatively, this profile may reflect poor management behaviors on the part of the supervisor, such as being too critical or "micro-managing" subordinates (White, 2010), despite the fact that subordinates may be of high caliber. ...
Research on supervisor feedback environment perceptions—contextual aspects of day-to-day feedback relationships—has established important relations between such perceptions and employee motivation, well-being, and performance. However, this line of work has two key limitations. First, all work has adopted a variable-centered approach, assessing how a composite score of seven feedback environment facets (e.g., feedback quality, feedback delivery, favorable feedback, feedback credibility, unfavorable feedback, source availability, promotion of feedback seeking) relates to outcomes. This assumes that employees have similar perceptions across all facets, ignoring the possibility that different profiles, or constellations, of supervisor feedback environment perceptions may exist. Second, antecedents of the feedback environment have been understudied, leaving many questions about how supervisor feedback environment perceptions develop. We seek to address these limitations by adopting a person-centered research approach in order to (a) identify profiles of feedback environment perceptions, (b) link these profiles to antecedents grounded in social exchange theory (SET), and (c) test the relations of these profiles with important feedback environment criteria. Results across two studies revealed three distinct profiles of feedback environment perceptions, each of which were differentiated by antecedents tied to SET, and uniquely related to outcomes tied to employee well-being, motivation, and supervisor-rated performance. These results expand upon previous work by exploring how perceptions of the supervisor feedback environment develop and operate more fully.
... Üçüncü kavram ise mikro yönetimdir. Detayları ve kontrol gerekliliğini -örgütün gelişimini engelleme pahasına-öne çıkaran bir örgütsel patolojiyi ifade eden mikro yönetim, gözetimci yaklaşımıyla firmayı stratejik bakış açısından uzaklaştırabilmektedir (Wright, 1999;White, 2010). Bundan dolayı, sosyal sorumluluk anlayışının problemli bir biçimde şekillenmesinde rol oynayabilecek bir dizi etken arasında yer alma olasılığı bulunmaktadır. ...
... Fully entrusting a leader to administer therapy may also foster organisational learned helplessness, by which there is no longer a response to treatment and organisations are perpetually frozen in a victimised state of illness, much like the outcome of victims of MSBP. Organisational illness might manifest as what White (2010) refers to as a "micromanagement disease" or in counter-productive work behaviour (Grijalva and Harms, 2014), which may produce turnover, burnout (Halbesleben and Buckley, 2004), emotional exhaustion and decreased organisational citizenship behaviour (Cropanzano et al., 2003). Forms of therapy might include unwanted job enrichment (Fein, 1976;Nord, 1977), the usage of total quality management to initiate a therapeutic feedback loop [Knights and McCabe, 1999, for relational difficulties of implementing total quality management (TQM)] or hiring external strategic consultants (Lippitt and Lippitt, 1984, for interference/threat to internal resources; and Ginsberg, 1989 for disappointing outcomes in short-term profitability). ...
Purpose
This paper aims to adapt the medical phenomenon of Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSBP) to an organisational context. Specifically, MSBP serves as a novel metaphor to describe the tendency for the organisation and the leader to perpetuate cycles of illness and therapy.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual metaphor is proposed based on the clinical description of MSBP. A perpetual feedback model emphasises a constant cycle of illness and therapy among leaders and organisations, often fabricated by a narcissist through destructive management.
Findings
The metaphor presented suggests that the role of deception is important for understanding why therapeutic approaches are often unnecessary, highly disruptive and administered by a destructive leader who possesses the power to alienate or dismiss non-corroborative organisational members. The implications of continuously passing illness between the leader and the organisation are a state of organisational disequilibrium and the manufacture of depersonalised, ill members.
Originality/value
This conceptual paper adds to the growing body of literature on behavioural strategy and contributes to the fields of organisational psychology, organisational analysis, management and employee relations.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
To say that Peter received mentoring from the most exceptional leader who ever existed would be a massive understatement. Jesus taught Peter a great deal on servant leadership. Yet, even with all the lessons that Peter learned from the Master leader, he still struggled under the pressure of rapid growth, cultural diversification, and decentralization in the early organizational life of the Church. This chapter looks at the leadership of Peter to examine how power, service, and mission inform leadership decision-making.
Support provided by the research advisor is understood to be one of the keys to success in higher-level studies. However, support remains a construct operationalised in many different ways, making it difficult to prescribe those behaviours supervisors should adopt or abandon to optimise support offered to students. This self-report study examines how perceived supportive or unsupportive behaviours relate to students’ wellbeing and attitudes towards their studies as well as dropout intentions. 203 graduate students completed an online survey measuring their perceptions of their advisor's support and several outcome measures. The results show that instrumental support explains a larger part of the variance of the outcomes than affective support. However, micromanagement best explains undesirable states such as negative affect, strain and drop out intentions. The results also suggest that demonstrations of support do not compensate for the negative effects of micromanagement. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.
Retaining talent continues to be an organizational issue, and surviving employees of a layoff are more likely to leave an organization voluntarily for alternative work. A quantitative method was used to explore emotional‐intelligence levels of individuals, voluntary turnover, and voluntary turnover intention using Schutte et al.’s questionnaire. A significant statistical relationship was found between emotional intelligence and one of four components of the unfolding model of voluntary turnover.
This book assembles multi-disciplinary contributions to delve deeper into ReThinking Management. The first part provides some foundational considerations and inspirations. Further chapters offer more specific links to the arts and creativity sectors as well as empirical research and case reflections. ReThinking Management pursues the main idea that management theory is not merely a sub-discipline of economics, but rather a cross-disciplinary and critical field of research and practice, with a decidedly cultural perspective. While questioning the status and practices of conventional management, the book opens up for new understandings, turns and perspectives.
Contents
• ReThinking Management and Cultural Turns
• Culture and Creativity
• Applications and Activities
Target Groups
• Researchers, lectures and students of social sciences, cultural studies and management studies
• Practitioners from different fields of business and management
The Editors
The editors are professors at Karlshochschule International University in Karlsruhe, Germany.
Wendelin Küpers is Professor of Leadership and Organization Studies.
Stephan Sonnenburg is Professor for Branding, Creativity and Performative Management.
Martin Zierold is Professor for Arts Management and Cultural Studies.
This chapter seeks to uncover the core issues that make leadership problematic based on evidence obtained from Australian Islamic organizations. It uncovers themes of problematic leadership derived from interviews with Australian Muslims and touches on these themes to understand the deeper issues behind problematic leadership within these organizations. Australian Muslims who were interviewed for this study identified many core problems with the top Australian Muslim organizations. These problems include lack of trust, micromanagement, lack of planning, lack of transparency, lack of adequate communications, etc. These core problems need to be acknowledged and resolved if organizations desire to become effective, relevant to the lives of their followers and time, and gain the trust of the very people they claim to represent.
It is time to re-think and to re-do! Our contemporary world of organizations and management; respectively, leadership as well as its socio-cultural embedment calls for a radical re-thinking (Bolden et al. 2016; Birkinshaw 2012; Ladkin 2012; Mowles 2011). But what does it mean to re-think something in general, and to re-think management in particular? This introduction tries to outline some basic consideration and inspiration about the status and implication of rethinking in relation to management, thereby to organizations and its embedding contexts. Resonating with a pluralistic cultural orientation (cultural turns in sensu see Bachmann-Medick in this book), we then critically reflect problems of a one-sided ‘culturalism’. Furthermore, we then move from a conceptual rethinking to a more performative understanding of re-doing.
In this chapter, we argue for the overlooked potential of pairwise communication for innovation efforts in organizations. We review the research that documents that pairs outperform other team constellations when it comes to idea development and refinement. We describe how to setup and optimize such dyadic communication so that it can contribute to organizational innovation. In the chapter, we give readers a strategy to leverage teams of two for innovation efforts, and we show how managers can enable pairwise communication. Cornerstone of the chapter is a concise and instructive typology of creative pairs as well as guidelines for their setup, management, and transition. We conclude the chapter with an outlook on future research on dyadic communication for innovation.
The term graceful degradation emerged in the information technology sector. It describes a functionality implemented by software programmers to help avoiding catastrophic failure when two machines interact. Inspired by Schirrmacher (2009), who describes the experience of permanent ungraceful degradation of brains in relation to existing information flood, degradation can also be observed to take place when machines interact with humans. This is of relevance to management thinkers and practitioners as it has adverse effects on individual knowledge workers and on organizations. To explore these effects, a conceptual framework is offered that helps to analyze different types of degradation. It is argued that when machines and knowledge workers interact, degradation can lead to a loss of productivity, a loss of competency, avoidance of responsibility and ultimately a loss of freedom. This occurs when the scarce resource of human attention becomes increasingly fragmented. It is concluded that a deliberate change of perspective can let managers pay attention to the management of attention. The expected dynamics suggest that knowledge workers will require machine assistance when it comes to attention management. As far as machine actors are concerned a property conceptualized here as new graceful degradation is expected to be required. Machine actors which gracefully degrade follow social rules which serve to protect the well-being of the knowledge worker.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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)