While exploring and trying to explain the role of leadership and performance management, Jamail (2012) offers a fascinating and insightful look as to what should be regarded as micromanagement and which one should not. From his point of view, micromanagement is a contextual issue—it should be defined or looked upon from the perspective of to whom –performer or no performer is leadership being directed to. To quote him, “….when micromanaging is used as a coaching or leadership style, it usually delivers bad results, stifles creativity, limits employees’ self-worth and kills productivity”. “…micromanaging should [however] be used with employees who are not meeting expectations or are bad performers” (Jamail, 2012). Well, you might be wondering why I have brought in all this, but getting back to the question at hand and being able to substantively understand and explain George’s style of leadership this insightful perspective comes in handy. The question thus still begging is; what style of leadership does George portray?
To answer this question, one needs to arise to the context within which George exercises his leadership actions. From the article, George’s leadership actions are brought to the fore in the eyes of a relatively newly hired top marketing executive, Shelley Stern. From what we get from the article, the decision to higher Shelley was initially fronted by the board’s chairman, Pete, and later on, absorbed by George, who enthusiastically refers to Shelly as “the best.” This term, about Shelly, will, however, throw the reader into perplexity as he or she reads on as we later on in the article see George keenly look as though to want to scrutinize every detail of her work. George’s actions in this whole corporate saga lead us to question whether he is indeed a micromanager or not, and by extension, what style of leadership is George trying to portray. According to Jamail (2012), micromanaging should be differentiated with coaching he describes as a leadership tactic that utilizes micromanagement aspects to manage activities and ensure that people deliver on their expectations and maximize productivity.
On the other hand, micromanagement aims to set boundaries and rules. From this definition, George cannot be termed as a micromanager but rather a coach in the way he exercises his leadership actions. What kind of leadership, though, that through its action will border on micromanagement?
George’s actions to appear to be sieving through every detail of Shelly’s work directly put him to be an autocrat—but is he just a plain autocrat? Limbare (2012) describes autocratic leadership as that style of leadership that ultimately shows no confidence in others, feels unpleasant, and that only interested in the immediate job at hand. Considering that George goes through Shelly’s script word by word to the extra mile of canceling and replacing some phrases with his would automatically pass him an autocrat. However, one is taken aback, and surely this cannot be said of a man who there before describes Shelly as the best. His style of leadership would more rightly fit in as a benevolent autocrat. A benevolent autocrat, as defined by Limbare (2012), is a leader who knows what he wants from his subordinates and situations, and moves in to get things done in his way without trying to appear as to cause resentment. In George, we see a leader, and although Shelly gets to her nerves, trying very hard not to appear a micromanager and cause resentment. Perhaps if we looked at it differently, it is Shelly who should instead take matters positively and not personally to change the situation. Given the scenario George is operating under, having not so long ago given the mantle to lead the company and the pressures to deliver and perform, one would not help but empathize with George and hope that those working with and around him can understand to assist and be part of the solution. The assertion of kind of ‘micromanaging’ as exercised by George is supported by Bruce Tulgan, Founder and President of Rainmaker Thinking who is quoted by Fisher (2004) “…only managers who succeed in giving their best people flexibility are those managers who are highly engaged and are hands-on and demand strict accountability for results.” George’s overbearing kind of behavior or so it seems, in my opinion—is thus just but his attempts to bring change and turnaround the company and make everybody better and a winner.
In Shelly’s situation, she needs to understand her boss to make some positive contribution to the company instead of complaining, whining all the time and getting frustrated. There is a problem, and rather than brush it all under the carpet and pretend there’s nothing wrong, Shelley will have to confront her problem, albeit a little differently this time around. In the article ‘coping with a difficult boss’ by Bloomsbury Business Library in their book Survive Office Politics, acceptance of the problem and resolving to deal with it rationally is the first step of managing a boss hitherto perceived difficult (2006). Once this is done, Shelly needs to sit down and get composed to get to understand her boss better. It is all out there in the article that Shelly feels that her boss should leave her alone when she runs her business professionally and concentrate on his area of expertise. Of course, such a view on her boss is not logical because as the person is given the mantle and mandate to run the company, everything including what Shelly does is his business and should be very concerned. Shelly needs to understand this to see and let it dawn on her from what angle does her boss needs and gets involved in all this she considers her docket. My advice would be that rather than get irked and irritated. Shelly should aim to perfectly do her job in a way her boss would feel ashamed to intervene.
To avoid any conflict and possibly to avoid the feeling that one is giving too much or just being helpless, the third step towards coping with a demanding boss is comparing and trying to understand your perception of your role and that of your boss. This will provide her with insight and probably a much-needed impetus to change things if it so emerges that the boss has a misconceived notion of what her role entails. In fact this step is very important and fundamental when it gets to a point of choosing to remain or leave. Shelly should also reexamine herself and seek to understand herself more, having done just that on her boss and finally remind herself that this is not about her or her boss but the organization and everybody contributing equitably. She should seek to meet up with her boss more often to make her contributions as necessary (Tulgan (2010). If all these don’t work and again reflecting on step three, she should just quit the organization and afford her boss the chance to seek and hire another person.
References
A & C Black (2006). Coping with a difficult boss, Survive Office Politics, Retrieved from Business Source Complete database.
Arnold, T. (2011). Are you a Micromanager? How to make sure you’re managing the right parts of your business, Smart Business St. Louis, p. 5: Retrieved from Business Source Complete database.
Chambers, H. (2005, summer). Surviving the Micromanager. How to succeed with a my way boss. Canadian Manager, 30(2), 24-25. Retrieved from Business Source Complete database.
Fisher, A. (2004). In Praise of Micromanaging, Fortune, Vol. 150, Issue 4: Retrieved from Business Source Complete database.
Fryer, B., Goodnight, J., Goulston, M., Lawrie, J. M. & Chappelow, C. (2004). The Micromanager. Harvard Business Review, 82(9), 31-39.
Jamail, N (2012). Coaching Performers, micromanaging poor performers, Sales and service excellence, p. 14: Retrieved from Business Source Complete database.
Limbare S. (2012). Leadership styles & conflict management styles of Executives, The Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 48, No. 1, July 2012: Retrieved from Business Source Complete database.
Tulgan, B. (2010). Manage up, and take charge of your work day, T+D, November 2010 issue, Pp70 & 71: Retrieved from Business Source Complete database.