A friend was me telling the story of how her manager had been very micro-managing last week - to the point of listening in on conversations from the other side of the room.
There had been earlier incidents of excessive action, such as sending passive aggressive messages by email and copying other managers or openly disciplining her in a meeting rather than discussing the issue aside in a more appropriate manner. Then there was the case of accusing her of performing incomplete or defective work and disciplining without evidence.
This person was not a complete tyrant. There were many occasions where they had a cool head and apologised for outbursts and mistreatment. Although there was some question to whether these were genuine or acts of saving face. However, the underlying theme seemed to be that this manager was most interested in asserting power and authority.
This confuses and doesn’t sit well with me. Why is there any need to ‘managing’ as means to kick down people in your team just to make yourself feel better — only for a fleeting moment?
I’m currently in a manager-ish type role as a project manager working with a small team. Maybe it’s because I’m in a different industry, but the people I work with are absolute experts in their field — I could not hold a candle to them when it comes to frontend development, backend development, or database administration. I recognise they are far more knowledgeable in their craft, and in every case so far, we’ve reached better outcomes using their insight and experience rather than me directing them with the top-down hammer on how to perform their work.
Sure, every now and then the team isn’t 120% focused and people have silly conversations or take slightly longer breaks here and there — but why stress?
The fact is these people are damn good at what they do, achieve results, and are able to capture and create the value we’re aiming to bring to our clients. I emphasised the word ‘people’ to remind us that our teams are made up of people, and are not some lifeless commodity. As long as we can do that, we’re all good.
The reality is that as managers, our role is to manage the work, and to work with the people. Working in this way empowers the people in our team to achieve the best results by applying their mastery, experience, and insight to the challenges we seek to overcome. I don’t want to be the type of manager who is the impediment themselves. I want to believe in my team and their ability. And in most cases, when you give people a chance and back them, they’ll thrive and you along with them.