Do you remember the day you got hired at your present job? You were employed when you got the final word because you could serve the company with the right skills. You had what they were looking for.
After 3-6 months, your boss slowly began changing how you would perform a skill because ‘it would be better like this’. After several changes to your style of finishing a job – you noticed you were waiting to be told how to do a project instead of finishing it up on your own. The boss has added more stress to their job by hovering over the staff to tell them their next move.
Micro-managers
Micro-managers are generally Type A people with high expectations. They have problems with delegating tasks without retaining control because they feel like their job will be axed for failure.
Basically, tell the staff – I don’t trust you, and they will accept that over time and allow the manager to work twice as hard.
Micro-managers create a negative motivation, as it demoralizes employees, thus being detrimental to the organization.
As a nursing leader, you want to be respected, and admired by your staff. When this happens, they begin working to please you harder than they would be told their mistakes or continuous correction. Your job as a leader is to encourage and compliment your team to higher effectiveness for your goal. Micro-managing weakens the team.
I know at some point in your present job – your boss has come to you and let you know something you did was wrong – and for you to make corrections. I know very few people who mind being told that they made a mistake and usually have no problem correcting it. However, at the same time, when you do something right, you would like to be noticed.
Congratulations on serving 20 years
In my career as a nurse, when I marked two decades under the roof of my employer. We were in a policy change meeting of about 20 people. Before the meeting started, my supervisor slid something in a yellow folder across the table in front of me. Inside was a piece of paper that had been printed off the computer, and my name was filled in. “Congratulations on serving 20 years at XXX”. She told what was in the envelope – everyone clapped – then on to the meeting.
No handshake – no thank you – no good job. I sat there and looked at this piece of paper, and all I could think of – in a yellow folder, not even framed or a plaque—two decades served for a piece of printed paper. The supervisor was already known for her micro-managing and demeaning other people around her – I thought to myself she had really outdone herself with the smallness that she treated her staff.
Leadership is like a waterfall.
Leadership is like a waterfall; water always falls from the top and runs downstream. If the stream becomes polluted along the way, it will be stagnant and smell when it pools at the end.
Leading people is the same thing. They have to be trusted to do the job they were hired for and feed them with encouragement to excel. If a lack of respect is given, and they are not complimented. After a while, you have a stagnant and smelly group of staff to run your units.
This attitude is easy to see in the time and attendance; it can be seen in how the units look and are maintained.
Happy Staff – results in a happy environment – and well-cared-for patients.
When you do not see people stepping up to new open positions of leadership. You need to look at the way your model is being run. The hesitation in your staff should be telling you something. If you have meetings and no one is asking questions or giving suggestions. Again, you need to look at the model of what you’re presently running.
Good managers empower their employees to do well by giving them opportunities to excel; Bad managers disempowered their employees by hoarding those opportunities. And a disempowered employee is ineffective and requires a lot of time and energy from his supervisor.
From the micromanager’s perspective, the best way to build healthier relationships with employees may be the most direct: Talk to them.
It might take several conversations to convince them that you’re serious about change. Getting frank feedback from employees is the hard part. Listen to them – hear what is being said.
Managers fail to listen when they forget their employees have important insights – and people who don’t feel listened to become disengaged.
Listen to your staff.
This article eloquently speaks to the basic human tendency that people respond with their best through respect, trust and appreciation….holds true for children too! Great post Angela!
Wow Angela, can I ever relate to this. My supervisor, the one I referred to in my last post about grandma dying…she was a real micro-manager, to the ninth degree. Those type of supervisors really put the kaboosh on any creativity, productivity and any morale left in a person.
I hope that you get out sooner than later. You will soar in every area of your life, personal, professional and spiritual when you do…mark my words friend. Thanks for exposing the nastiness of micro-managing…anything.
Carla – I see so many super smart people that have shut down due to the lack of encouragement. They forget they are smart because they have been smacked back so many times.
Amazing how people do not know this by nature – that people respond to positive verse negative. Those in a supervisor position should have special “people skills training” prior to going into the job!
Angela, this is such a huge concept in management. Love your perspective!
This concept is so especially important for managers of healthcare providers. Everything that they 'lead' with, good or bad, will be felt and experienced ultimately by the patients. Great post Angela!
I saw this and was the victim of this in the majority of places I worked. It is amazing how managers and supervisors just don't get that basic principle "Happy staff results in a happy environment … and well cared for patients or clients or customers." All the same. Lets hope someone was listening and will hear your voice! Thanks Angela!
Micromanaging employees is demoralizing… it reminds me of slave-driving. We can all work together to support change
I would add to “who do not feel listened become disengaged” and unsatisfied and some times even depressed on the verge of leaving. Don’t let your creative light and desire to grow, change be overthrown by leadership models that don’t work and instead leave you thinking “ I’m a human machine.”
I like that you are a human machines – LOL… thank you