Does anyone else’s manager do this? Micromanaging driving me nuts

[Mog09]

In my job I get a lot of emails, most do not need actioning immediately so I usually just close my outlook tab and check it periodically throughout the day so I don’t get distracted by the emails popping up.

My manager has a habit of messaging me throughout the day saying ‘have you seen x email, I think you should do this’ or ‘on this email for x, can you do x y z’. Usually I haven’t seen the email yet as in most cases it’s literally been less than 10 mins since I received it!

Its starting to wind me up as firstly it feels like he has nothing else to do when my team is really busy, and I wonder why he’s being paid so much more than me to literally make actions off my emails. It also feels like micromanaging, I have a team of direct reports and he’s quite often giving instructions like ‘can you ask x person to look at this’, I was usually planning on doing that anyway, had I read the email as soon as I received it!

Anyone else’s manager do this? Other managers I’ve had are much less hands on and even if cc’d would just leave it to me. Is there a strategy to stop it? I literally feel like logging off and saying why don’t you just do my bloody job!

put your out of office on, both on microsoft as well as teams.

I do that as well ☺️

My manager is sat on so heavily by her boss that she has become patronizing and micromanaging. Her boss is a real cold robot type & has taken her confidence away.
I like the place and it's close to home so I can't really leave; I just have to suck it up. Sone people are shockingly bad managers. But I've had worse than this one. At least she isn't a sadist! Every cloud.

Also, I think they often promote the wrong people who, once promoted, feel inadequate and have to over compensate all over the place and manage in a macho way; it's so transparent-and they never learn either!

Your boss is sending you a msg (literally) that he thinks the emails are more time sensitive than you do.

So your options are

• Ignore him and go about things as you are
• Talk to him and tell him your style and what your typical turnaround time is
• Accept that’s how he is and react when you get the “Have you seen X” emails

Honestly, I’ve done all 3 in the past based on what I think will be most effective.

Oh and it’s shockingly bad advice to mute your manager on Teams or turn your OoO on when you’re not actually out of the office.

@Allmyplantsdie
I’ve have micromanaged staff before, and it’s always the ones I don’t trust. You need to demonstrate to him that you are on top of things. Not in a snippy way, but you need to build his trust and confidence in you.
it can be difficult as a manager, your performance ultimately reflects on him, just because there haven’t been concerns about your performance in the past doesn’t mean he can come in and trust you 100%

In my previous experience of being micro managed it was usually a reflection on the manager’s lack of confidence in themselves.
Strong leaders don’t micro manage because they don’t have to and as a result they get better results from their team and more respect.

Needless to say, the highly micromanaged position I was in suffered from high turnover. I did well to put up with it for a year and a half before throwing in the towel.

Surprised to see posters saying it looks like op isn’t managing her emails because she is checking them periodically rather than as they come in. This is one of the first tips given in pretty much any time management training.

Turn the situation around so that you can offer a useful solution instead of being annoyed at the problem.

Speak to your manager. Say that you'd like to agree a more productive way of you keeping manager informed on workload/progress/whatever because you're noticing that the information/requests/suggestions they are sending you is a duplication of what you have already received by email. Explain this is a problem for you because you are spending twice as much time identifying each task, first by reading the email and actioning it, and then second by reading the message from the manager and checking the same task. Explain that it's not productive for you and can't be productive for them either.

Suggest a daily debrief where everyone in the team updates on progress if appropriate, or a weekly meeting, etc.

of course you can turn your out of office on, imo
with a message saying, in a meeting/working on a project, and the time you will be available.

You'll look so strange if you turn on your out of office and say you're working on a project for a couple of hours!

Agree - is he new to your organisation? I know you say that it's normal for your workplace but in lots of places a one day turnaround for clients would be unacceptable, and two weeks for anyone, internal or not, would be outrageous! If this is your culture - and you say senior management tell you not to reply instantly so it seems like this is documented and accepted and so could be pointed to - you perhaps need to find a non-confrontational way of pointing this out.

Yeah, this is what the "do not disturb" status on Teams is for. No need for an OOO.

It sounds like your manager would like you to be a bit more "on it"

Really? Because every leadership training course I've been on recommends this exact approach if you are overwhelmed with constant email traffic and diversions. Managers are paid to manage and to hit their targets/objectives, not get into back and forth on email messages.

Perfectly normal to get 'out of office' from agencies (where I assume the OP works) saying account team are unavailable or in meetings and will respond by Xpm. Also perfectly normal for people to work part time / flexible so obviously they won't be hanging around waiting to answer emails 8 hours a day.

This addiction to email presentee-ism is ridiculous and inefficient. If you managed your comms properly you wouldn't have to hang around on teams/email and you'd get a lot more work done.

In my experience micromanagers are generally poor at managing people and everyone ends up suffering because of it. I completely sympathise. If there is an issue with someone's work then as a manager you raise it with them, otherwise leave them alone to do their job.

I think the problem isn’t so much that his messages are a distraction it’s more that I don’t feel I get the chance to demonstrate my management skills or own the task. As it seems he literally jumps on emails as soon as they come in and points out how to approach them I don’t actually get the chance to lead on any tasks (which is supposed to be my job)! By the time I started work this morning (at my contracted start time) there were already multiple messages on teams of ‘on this email I would do this’ and ‘on the message from y can you reply this’. It just feels like an intrusion on my owned work and in my opinion there’s no need for it.

Then this is your best strategy

• Talk to him and tell him your style and what your typical turnaround time is

For whatever reason he’s jumping in before you have a chance to do what you’re going to do. It could be as simple of an explanation that he’s in the office before you and reading his emails before you get a chance to do it or he has unfounded or founded concerns about your ability.

Whatever it is you won’t know until you have the conversation.

Here’s one for you: my peer, who is my equal but seems to like to think she is god’s gift to management, emailed me today, with our manager in copy saying ‘I know that X isn’t due for two weeks but I don’t want us to be on the naughty list so remember to do it!’ I’ve never forgotten before. None of our team have. It’s just a power play.

Yes, it is my role. Yes, I was going to do it. In two weeks. I’m this close to emailing her to “remind” her not to forget how to suck eggs. CF. Delete and note that down as a topic for my one-to-one with our shared manager.

Set the delay so they arrive in office hours. It's really stressful to be worrying or thinking about work and just logging in to check one thing, only to find that your boss has sent you twenty other emails to fill your head as you try to sleep - you're putting pressure upon the most conscientious/already stressed staff, even if they haven't connected their work email to their phone because they're worried they'll miss something really important.

It also puts pressure on them that they should be alert and thinking about work all the time, including when they're unpaid. Because you are.

@PastaLaVistaBabee I email my supervisees all the time, even in the middle of the night because it's how I work

Please don't do this. It's really intrusive. Use scheduled send.

I constantly receive emails through the night from one colleague and it just makes them look very inefficient - get your work done in office hours.

it sounds very maddening, OP

I wonder if you could ask your manager for a guideline of how quickly to respond to emails. Do they want within 10 minutes, within an hour, or within 2 hours. Then do that response point -5 minutes utterly consistently. Otherwise ask them not to clutter up your email inbox worry about needing to remind you unless they haven't had a cc within that time frame they say is what they want.

if they still micro-manage on a much shorter time scale then call them out on it politely -- oh wait, "you said 2 hours but should i prioritise emails from X to respond to within 10 minutes? please clarify what is best." etc.

ha! colleagues & I often email in middle of night.

I find it very weird anyone thinks they are supposed to respond quickly or out of hours. Then again, I work in an industry where people taking months to reply to an email is completely normal.

ps: I never could get scheduled send to work. I wonder why not. Scheduled send = Never send in my experience.