A week before Xmas I was putting my 4 year old child to bed. It hadn’t been one of his best days. The closer Xmas got, the worse his behaviour was.
In desperation to stop this spiral, I reminded him about Santa and his list. ‘He’s watching you, looking out for the good and bad things you’re doing, ‘ I heard myself say. And I stopped.
What an awful thing to tell a child. You’re being watched and judged 24/7 by someone who has power over your destiny but you can’t see them or talk with them. The power is all theirs.
In the case of Santa, it’s unsavoury, but it happens at work too.
Have you worked for a micromanager?
Micromanagers disempower their teams and make them feel like they can do no right. It comes from the idea that control is what managers do. Maybe it is, but empower is what leaders do. I don’t know about you but I do some of my worst work when I feel I’m being controlled.
When starting out in my career, I had a boss who liked to appear out of the blue to check on the detail of what I was doing. Every time she asked me a question, instead of neat incisive thinking, rambling nonsense came out of my mouth. She wasn’t helping.
