Walter | manager

Huh?

The boss, Walter explains, didn't believe that his young hire's output was ready for prime time, and therefore he buffed, polished, and prettied up the work before passing it upstairs. There's a thin line between mentoring and micromanaging, and sometimes the line just may be invisible. Adds Walter: "As I got better in my job performance, he loosened the reins; he backed off and gave me more freedom." A quarter-century later, Walter has risen high up the career ladder, but, he says, "that experience shaped me as a manager." He says he'll sit down with fresh hires and tell them, "I don't want you to make mistakes, but if you do, part of my job is to correct them." That, he says, isn't micromanaging - it's putting out quality work. Period.

FOR THE MICROMANAGER

Do the math: If more than three-quarters of employees complain that they are micromanaged, that means a whole lot of bosses are guilty as charged. What about you?

As a micromanagement expert, Chambers regularly grills bosses, and his first question is: Do you allow others to influence how things are done?

If your answer is that you provide subordinates with step-by-step instructions even for routine jobs, move on to question two: Does everything have to be done your way?

Say yes and here's the last question: How often do you tell people to rework a report before you approve it? If the answer is "always," guess what? You are a micromanager.