The Dangers of Micro-managing

What’s one sure way to get the least out of your team? Micro-manage them. I’ve seen this again and again – Micro-managing, or supplying every little detail and expecting every little comment you make to be executed literally will quickly shut down their brains.

I saw this with one of our consultants. He was working on a project where the manager had very specific, non-explicit requirements for how the solution was implemented. After two or three of his suggestions were shot down, he stopped making them. The funny thing is that his suggestions would have made the product more robust and maintainable. Even more interesting than that, this senior developer started asking me how to implement specific lines of code. I have not coded in 10 years, but I understood why he was asking and what he needed. He wanted to give the customer what they wanted, and knew they had very specific ways they wanted it coded.

Thinking about my own management style, I think I may err too far in the other direction. I’ve been told, more than once, that I have made my directs uncomfortable because I don’t tell them exactly what to do. I do try to make sure they know I have confidence in them, and that I’m there if they have questions, but sometimes it still seems like they’d like very specific direction. My question is: Is this just because they have become used to being micro-managed, or is there a middle ground that I’m missing?