When Supervisors Supervise the Supervision of Supervisors

Organizational psychologists and researchers have observed that micromanagement leadership is associated with negative workplace outcomes: low employee morale, decreased productivity, staff disengagement, low motivation, and employee turnover.

Micromanagement as the workplace culture

An organization with multiple layers of supervision may foster micromanagement. Organizations where micromanagement is tolerated or even encouraged may place a high value on rule-following and top-down, autocratic decision-making. Such organizations foster managing up (decisions made to please those above you) rather than managing down (decisions made to foster employee autonomy and work productivity).

The person doing the actual work is supervised by supervisors supervising the supervision of the supervisor. Each supervisor may have to justify their position and, therefore, engage in unnecessary surveillance of employees. This, in turn, promotes a culture of distrust.

DeLeon and Tripodi discuss the philosophy of micromanagement in the U.S. Army. They describe the Army’s style as bureaucratic, driven by the fear of failure and uncertainty. Paradoxically, the Army operates under uncertainty. The military even has an acronym for this: VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity)! DeLeon and Tripodi observe that the Army’s risk aversion leads to excessive oversight and control of (and distrust of) subordinates to protect the leader from being punished for failures.

Moreover, while micromanagement stands in contrast to written directives, in reality, performance appraisals, policies, and promotion criteria entrench this style. DeLeon and Tripodi observe that risk aversion becomes a “game of exercising constant mitigation to avoid mistakes as opposed to working toward success as a team.” (p.92)

Cost of micromanagers

These examples illustrate the cost of micromanagement. Lee and colleagues conducted a broad literature review of micromanaging effects by clinical supervisors in healthcare. The micromanaging supervisors were those who exercised excessive control of trainees, closely monitored minutiae of work practices, were autocratic and did not allow trainees to make autonomous decisions. This style eroded their trainees’ self-confidence and learning, as well as reduced the ability to graduate competent medical providers. The eventual cost is borne by the patients to whom the trainees will eventually be providing medical care.

DeLeon and Tripodi described the Army’s micromanagement as exerting a deadening effect on creativity. Micromanagers can add layers to decision-making, forming an obstacle for battlefield units to be flexible and react nimbly to emerging threats. Paradoxically, the most effective decision-maker in a battlefield setting may not be the most senior in command; this boots-on-the-ground person does not have the authority to depart from orders by their superiors—even if those orders are detrimental to the mission.

DeLeon and Tripodi note that the cost of this top-down-responsibility-without-authority chain of command can be destructive in the VUCA environment where “time and initiative are critical.” They urge the U.S. Army to embrace the “philosophy that empowers the best-positioned leader to make critical decisions” (p.88).

In other words, let go of helicopter bosses.

So, why is this management style so prevalent? It may be an interactional effect of organizational culture and the personality styles of those promoted to leadership roles. Despite the cost, the culture of distrust may be difficult to upend if it is deeply ingrained in the policies and promotion practices and if organizations punish leaders who promote the autonomy of those under them.

Personality traits of helicopter bosses

Why would anyone want to be in a leadership position where distrust of subordinates and constant surveillance of their work and decisions is required?

Micromanagers may derive value from constantly hovering over and monitoring their employees and thus be viewed by their underlings as helicopter bosses. Researchers often characterize micromanagers as those who lead by excessive control and are detail-obsessed. Two psychological pathways appear related and intertwined in the micromanager’s character style: emotional insecurity and controlling behaviors. Insecurities about their ability to make the right decisions are intertwined with the belief that closely monitoring their subordinates to the minutiae is the only way to ensure that the task is done correctly.

Deen and colleagues studied over 2,000 individuals across varied industries to narrow down the attributes of “helicopter bosses.” Micromanagers were controlling, engaged in close monitoring, and detail-focused. The supervision was excessive, sustained, and unnecessary. Similarly, Lee and colleagues found that micromanaging healthcare clinicians harbored personality characteristics of distrustfulness, perfectionism, and low self-esteem.

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Not surprisingly, micromanagers are often unaware, or perhaps even oblivious, that their behavior is an obstacle rather than an enhancement to employee work performance. The micromanager’s individual psychology may be myopic in that they view themselves as detail-oriented rather than detail-obsessed; their leadership style offers their subordinates needed oversight and fulfills organizational needs to be accountable.

Micromanagement robs employees of purpose, mastery, and autonomy

Both the organizational culture and the helicopter bosses it attracts are in contrast to what motivates people in their work: purpose, mastery, and autonomy. Daniel Pink, in his book Drive, highlighted the importance of intrinsic motivators as this leads to long-term buy-in and engagement by employees. Psychological research bears this out: The internal locus of control—the belief that one exerts control over their environment—promotes autonomy; the external locus of control—the belief that things happen to you, not because of you—leads to passivity.

Micromanagers operate in the realm of an external locus of control and quash employees’ internal locus of control and intrinsic motivation.

Organizations that overtly or covertly support micromanagement styles will attract helicopter bosses, promote top-down autocracies, punish those who take risks, quell creativity, fail to attract talented employees, and foster mediocrity. Paraphrasing Teddy Roosevelt, the pathway for organizations to change the culture of micromanagement is to pick leaders secure enough in themselves to pick competent employees and who have the self-restraint to keep from meddling.