the.com/micromanagement
Leadership that mistakes control for competence, and trust for weakness.
means Supervising so closely that every small task needs your approval, which slows everyone down while making you feel useful.
from Built from Greek 'mikros' (small) plus 'manage,' which itself traces back through French to Italian 'maneggiare' — originally to handle or train a horse, rooted in Latin 'manus,' the hand. So management once meant guiding something powerful with a skilled touch; micromanagement is what happens when the hand refuses to let go of the reins, even over the smallest, gentlest horse in the stable. The word itself is a 20th-century coinage, grafted together as organizations grew large enough to need a name for bosses who couldn't stop gripping the tiny stuff.
- origin
- term rose in 1970s business writing
- irony
- usually practiced by the most anxious person in the room
- effect
- kills initiative faster than any layoff
- tell
- needs cc on emails it was never part of