If you’ve ever worked for a micromanager. You’d know it. It’s that boss who is a little too involved with everything and pays excessive attention. Even the smallest details. Did you know that your boss is probably afraid according to business psychologist, Dr. Roger Hall that’s because control and fear — Well, they’re linked. Joining me now live from Boise, Idaho, where I lived when I was three years old. Good morning to you, Dr. Hall.
Good morning. Thank you for having me
Boise Idaho, a beautiful area, by the way. Just absolutely love it. All right. Here’s the first one I like to ask you. You say fear. It leads to control. So I guess what are some examples of that?
Well, if you, if you own a dog, you know, this, that the, the one thing you always take with you when you take your dog for a walk is a leash because you have a legitimate fear. At least I do with my dog that he’ll, he’ll go after a squirrel or get on a smell. And so the, the leash is a means of controlling something we legitimately fear and, and lots of motivational speakers tell you that fear is a bad thing. Fear is a great thing. Unless you fear something with too much or fear the wrong things. So to, to have control of the dog by a leash, makes sense to prevent that fear from coming true. Now the, the problem is, is that there most things in our life we don’t control at all. And so when we can’t control something, we switched to information gathering, and you see this when you’re standing at a bus stop or, or if you’re, if, if, if you’ve ever been on a subway platform, nobody controls when the train comes, but if you stand on a platform or if you stand at the bus, stop, watch people.
And what they’ll do is they’ll look down the line and look for the bus or look for the train because they can’t control when it’ll be there. But the more anxious ones, the ones who have more fear spend more time looking, and it doesn’t give the information gatherer any advantage, maybe a two second advantage over the person who’s looking at their phone, not paying attention. And so what we see is people who, who are afraid, try to control something. And sometimes that’s legitimate. And if they can’t control it directly, then they’ll seek information. Now, how does this apply to micromanagers? Well, micromanagers are bosses who are afraid are, are trying to control what you’re doing. And if you’ve ever had a boss who, who steps in and does your work for you, they’re afraid of something. They could be afraid of being embarrassed in front of their own boss. They could be afraid of failure. They could be afraid of being fired themselves. They’re there any number of reasons why your boss might be afraid and they’ll either step in and do the work for you or give you excessive direction or they’ll check on your progress. And if you’ve ever had a boss who comes into your office 15 times a day, that’s a sign of your bosses, anxiety.
Yeah. That’s not good. And unfortunately, I’m going to have to micromanage the time right now because we’re out of it. Dr. Hall is there any place for people can go if they want to get more information on this? Cause I know we were only able to provide some of it.
Yeah, they can. They can check my website drrogerhall.com, drrogerhall.com.
That makes sense. Dr. Hall. Thanks for being here. We appreciate it. Thank you so much.