Macro Vs. Micro Management

Macro vs. Micro Management

Macro vs. Micro Management

The role of manager is an important position of supervision in any organization. The supervisor/manager plays a key function, in the day to day needs of the organization, by finding a balance of work efficiency and managing personnel. This balance becomes even more prevalent when assigning projects or interacting with subordinates. This paper will analyze several aspects or pitfalls, managers could find themselves involved in; and will identify methods used to overcome these situations when supervising subordinates.

The position of manager holds many responsibilities in an organization; those responsibilities range from dealing with requests from upper management and servicing employee’s needs, and while seeing to theses responsibilities, the manager still has to supervise the overall direction of his or her department. The multiple tasks a manager must operate within, requires the manager to be flexible and ready to move on a moment’s notice to handle issues that may arise. With this dynamic working environment, a manager needs to understand the roles and responsibilities of supervision, in the organization. A manager must, set the tone and pace of the department, and with employees. A professional level of supervision, of employees is important to developing a positive environment for all to work in.

A balance needs to be maintained; the manager needs to understand the pitfalls of macro managing and or micromanaging employees. A manager, who operates in either of these identified areas, can derail the entire department, which could cause low morale, low productivity and employees transferring or quitting.

Now while there’s a definite benefit to maintaining some level of control, there can be a disadvantage to it as well. "He's a micro-manager," complains one executive of his boss. "I'm given no autonomy to do the job the way I know it should be done," says a senior manager. Another vice-president was similarly vexed, but positive: "Maybe he just doesn't know how to delegate." (Stern, 2007) In that same article by Stern, he goes on to say; if leaders do not give up control to the senior staff, it will end up hurting everyone involved and that includes themselves.

Morale of the team drops, loyalty goes out the window, productivity and profits fall, and not to mention that their own chance for advancement goes down, as they haven’t spent the time to develop and train their future replacement.

So why do they do it? What possesses a leader to become a micro manager? As Claire Ward wrote back in 2006 in an article titled “How to Manage a Micro Manager” she states the following, “As a result he is committed to two goals: First, micro-managing every step of the project to ensure its success; and secondly, making sure that no one steals any of the limelight from him as the project moves to completion. It appears that insecurity has prevented him from using your expertise to his advantage.” (Ward, 2006) It now it appears that most managers will start to micro manage someone, and will develop a complex of, how they can do it better than anyone else or there’s no qualified employees to do the job. As stated above, a micro manager becomes a glory hound, plain and simple! These types of managers are such that they want to be the center of attention at all costs, even if that means picking over every aspect of the project so they can claim, that if it wasn’t for them the project would have failed.

Thankfully there’s hope for the micro manager and it was briefly mentioned earlier in this paper, and it’s called delegation. However, that one little word sends shock waves up and down the spines of managers and CEO’s all the time. Over 33% of America’s top CEO’s list delegating as their greatest challenge, according to a survey by consulting firm Deloitte. (Gunn, 2007, para.7) According to Christy Youd, the five steps to proper delegation are; “Be committed to the full delegation cycle, delegate in writing, train your team members to report back on time, use a reminder system to ensure proper follow up, and report back to the person who you received the assignment from.” (Youd, 2007, p.21)

If a micro manager would fully commit themselves to those five steps, they would not only receive the recognition that Claire Ward discussed they needed; but they would definitely free themselves up for other important tasks and job functions.

Another pitfall that managers can find themselves committing occurs when the manager is too involved in the day to day happenings or “hovering” of their employees. The hovering of employees, risk’s creating an environment of dependency of the employee to the manager. This is not a micromanaging issue; rather the supervisor is becoming too involved with the employee and is creating a touchy вЂ" feely, coddling type workplace. According to Benjamin Compton, with, GroupWise Integrations Experts, the number one issue supervisors must understand is that “focusing exclusively on the mind or the heart is a mistake” (Compton, 2006, p.6) when it comes to dealing with subordinates. “When feelings are given precedence over reason, the potential exist for the department to loose sight of what work is all about.” (Compton, 2006, p. 8) This conversely, is the fault of the hovering manager, and the potential consequences can reach down to the employees. The effect of this improper management style on the employee creates a dependency of employee to manager; where the employee is unable to grow in ways that are valuable to the employer. This type of situation where the employee is not allowed to grow can hold serious consequences to the employee. The upper management may view this as a failure to thrive in the organization and thus terminate the employee.

A more extreme angle, to the touchy-feely management style, may include a manager, who is dealing with a power trip type mentality. This type of supervisor will assume the role of a “hovering” manager over employees; but the reasons for this hovering are more of the mother hen who needs to be close to her babies. This type of manager needs, to be quickly available to deal with situations or needs that may arise, this manager feels they are the only one who can handle this matter. This type of touchy-feely manager grows out of concern for the age of the employees