Let’s get one thing straight: micromanagement is not leadership. It’s a fear-based power grab dressed up as “being thorough.” If your team members are logging their work in 15-minute increments just so you can breathe easy, it’s time for an intervention—and not for them. For you.
Welcome to another painfully honest, truth-telling blog post from the world of Shattered Glass Leadership, where we call out the nonsense, name the hard stuff, and laugh (dryly) while doing it.
And today’s dirty little secret?
Micromanagement is the silent killer of creativity, morale, and innovation.
If you’re still doing it, or tolerating it in your workplace, you’re not leading—you’re clogging the arteries of your organization’s potential.
What is Micromanagement, Really?
It’s not “being detail-oriented.”
It’s not “caring about outcomes.”
It’s control on overdrive, born from a deep distrust that your people will drop the ball if you’re not breathing down their necks. It’s perfectionism pretending to be professionalism. And it never ends well.
Micromanagers:
- Rewrite your emails “just to polish them”
- Demand updates every 30 minutes
- Sit in on every meeting (even ones where their presence adds nothing but tension)
- Don’t delegate—then complain they’re “swamped”
- Redo your work… then forget to tell you why
- Expect you to follow orders, not offer ideas
If this sounds like you or your boss, we’ve got a leadership problem masquerading as “standards.”
The Fallout of Micromanagement
Micromanagement doesn’t just bruise egos—it breaks trust, burns out talent, and suffocates progress.
For employees, it leads to:
- Crushed morale and shattered confidence
- Powerlessness and resentment
- Burnout, stress, and disengagement
- Stifled creativity and no innovation
- Apathy (“I’m just here so I don’t get yelled at” is not a culture strategy)
For organizations, the costs are even higher:
- High turnover—people don’t quit jobs, they quit micromanagers
- Missed deadlines and decreased productivity
- No innovation, no risk-taking, no growth
- A culture of mediocrity where top performers quietly exit
- Lawsuits, conflict, and a stubborn resistance to change
So why do leaders do it?
Because they’re afraid. Afraid of failing, of being embarrassed, of being outshone by someone they hired.
The tragedy? Most don’t even know they’re doing it.
Want to learn more – Grad the newest UnCourse.
