SleepyBanana

Stealth

Narrate your story dealing with Micromanagers

The one who

Keeps nagging with status updates
Pushes you to achieve a goal which is merely quantitative & not qualitative
Appreciates employees that show ‘first-benchers’ trait
Junks your ideas to satisfy his own ego
Pretends busy all the time

Comment your experience dealing with such Managers.

22mo ago

Talking product sense with Ridhi

9 min AI interview5 questions

DizzyLlama

Atlys22mo

All of them

SleepyBanana

Stealth22mo

How do you deal with them?

DizzyLlama

Atlys22mo

I want to be proactive in keeping them in loop. I still struggle and have misses. But, to solve that, be proactive in communication. They are a stakeholder in the task they gave. You do own them, but it's essential to keep them in the loop across milestones
Establish qualitative metrics yourself! Manager just wants a job done. It's for us to decide how well we solve for it. After all, if we do a sloppy job, it's gonna bite us in the ass later🤣🤣
Can't do anything on that. Our task is to deliver on what we made a commitment on. That's all! That's a bare minimum to do. We cannot be Licking their boots, I have far too much pride and far too much faith in myself that I don't have to go to that level to be noticed. But yeah, one thing we can do is always showcase what we do in public channels. We need visibility. People should know what we have been upto! And secondly, let's not look for validation from Managers. If they appreciate us, well and good. If not, let's just find a way to take feedbacks across people and improve. We should be our own validators!
They really have a small mindset. When this happens, I just keep on probing for answers. The moment the manager gets angry and doesn't have proper answers, I leave it. I just lose respect for the person. That's when I look around to switch, I don't want to work under someone I don't respect. I don't think anyone will!
Maybe they are actually busy🤣 I can't say for other managers, they do seem free many times, and they have gotten relaxed than they were once engineers, but they are at a level where they look at big picture. As a manager, all I care is, can you look at big picture and figure out ways to achieve big charters, can you help your team out(unblocking across teams, blockers, ideas, expertise). That's all, if they are just pretending and cannot deliver on above, again, I lose respect😅

WigglyWalrus

Stealth22mo

I had a bitch of a TL who continuously gave me a call every 15 minutes for an update since I was working on Implementations and escalations.

I simply made sure everytime she wanted me to hurry up, I would slow down a bit more.

Thus creating an Akira's Paradox.

She left me alone pretty quick, PIP'd for a good measure.

SleepyBanana

Stealth22mo

Well done! 👍

SleepyBanana

Stealth22mo

What’s Akira’s paradox? Hearing it for the first time.

QuirkyNarwhal

Stealth22mo

These are the incompetent managers who don't know anything themselves, and if someone is trying to explain they can't trust anyone and blame others for their own incompetence.

SleepyBanana

Stealth22mo

What do you keep in your armory to deal with such people?

SnoozyJellybean

Stealth22mo

I set up regular time to share updates, if this is adhoc then I share an eta on when they can expect an update and I try to share an update before that time only
Have not dealt with someone like this.
I dont care about this, as long as he understands I am important for the team, I honestly dont care about whom he appreciates and whom he doesn't
I try to reason logically, If there is a dictatorship attitude then it would be difficult to deal with such a person. Again will share this feedback with them directly and see how it works out.
I have set up weekly time with them and ping them if something is very important or urgent. Else I discuss it in our weekly calls. Over the years I have felt when feedback is given directly people do try to improve.

And if people dont want to improve on the feedback then better to give it to one level higher. All depends on the kind of company you are working for and how important you are in the team

SleepyBanana

Stealth22mo

Continuous feedback given directly is important. At times, having a skip meeting with one level above is also important. Great points to note 👍.

SquishyLlama

Stealth22mo

Meet outside and beat him up.

SleepyBanana

Stealth22mo

😆

PeppyUnicorn

Stealth22mo

I once had to make a laundry list of my tasks surrounding the public launch of the app, but he chose to alter deadlines to his whim and fancy along with derogatory comments. (While I was bedridden, down with a flu) The funniest bit was when he came across my plans across ASO and Product Hunt, he commented that he had no idea what they were (as CTO).

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