Are Micromanagers Lazy?
Personally, I wouldn’t use the term lazy. I don’t think they are just being lazy, I think parents and managers default to this approach because they don’t know any better. They haven’t been given clear direction on how to parent or manage, and they’ve been overwhelmed with the variety and often conflicting information they can get. Without clarity, they’ve defaulted to the simplest solution – do it yourself.
For managers, that looks a lot like Jake describes it. Fixing the work of your reports instead of providing feedback, reminding them repeatedly about deadlines, needing to see them in the office working, being CC’d on every email, and generally just looking over their shoulder at every turn. I don’t know many managers who want to work that way, yet we all know there are plenty of managers who do. As I said earlier, I don’t think they want to be lazy, I think they lack the proper training and clarity about managing. How much better could they be, and in turn the people who report to them be, if our organizations provided that?
