Managing the Micro-Manager

The micro-manager isn't trying to torture you.

It's probably not about you at all.

They're trying to survive their own anxiety.

Think of them like a smoke detector with a failing battery. It's not beeping because there's a fire—it's beeping because it can't tell if there's a fire. Your job isn't to disable the detector. It's to show it, constantly, that everything's fine.

And what we can’t always see is someone's probably doing the same thing to them. They're carrying pressure, and you're the one variable they think they can control.

The solution isn't to resist their need for visibility—it's to over-deliver on it before they ask.

Send the Friday update on Thursday. Share the draft when it's 60% done, not 90%. Create a simple system they can check anytime—a shared doc, a weekly dashboard, a standing 10-minute sync.

Early trust comes from eliminating their fear of surprise. Show them the messy middle, not just the polished end. Let them see you're thinking about what they're worried about.

The Productivity Win: Every surprise check-in, every "got a minute?", every anxious Teams message—those cost you focus and flow. Build the transparency system once, and you buy back hours every week. No more context-switching. No more defending your progress. Just uninterrupted work.

Most people wait to earn autonomy. Leaders demonstrate they don't need to be managed by managing the manager's anxiety first.

Once you make yourself completely visible, you become invisible again.