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Summative Assessment: A Quantitative Research Study to Investigate the Effect of Micromanagement Leadership Style on Employees’ Self-Esteem, High Turnover Rate, and Productivity

Opening Paragraph and Background of The Study

Micromanagement is an organizational leadership style that threatens the survival of an organization as it is associated with low employee self-esteem, high turnover rate, and declined productivity ((Barnes, 2015; Leary, 2010). While every organization implements its unique management style, various organizations tend to use the micromanagement leadership style. The organizational structure is one of the main factors that contribute to the use of micromanagement as an organizational leadership style because of the presence of multiple hierarchies (Leong, 2018).

The leaders tend to micromanage their subordinates, issuing direct commands without the involvement of supervisors and the employees. Additionally, micromanagement is associated with a lack of resources, common among government agencies (Leong, 2018). In such scenarios, the public workers work in challenging conditions and are subject to complex responsibilities with little or no resources. The managers also subject the employees to unnecessary checks to prevent minor or irrelevant errors in their job areas. Such conditions lead to low morale and self-esteem as the employees feel that their skills are questioned, and their presence is undervalued. Consequently, the organization experiences a high turnover rate and low productivity. Therefore, the impact of micromanagement in some organizations affects employees’ self-esteem, high turnover rate, and low productivity.

Background of Micromanagement

Micromanagement is one of the forms of organizational leadership employed in some organizations to manage risk and maximize employee performance. According to Mishra et al. (2019), the benefits of micromanagement include handling new employees, managing high risk, and enhancing performance among underperforming individuals, especially in areas with no one to undertake work. However, the long-term impact of micromanagement is an overall increase in costs. According to Mishra et al. (2019), micromanagement leads to decreased productivity, high turnover rates, lack of customer satisfaction, and low employee morale. Managers worrying too much about day-to-day operational matters among the employees miss the larger picture and do not deliver the department or organization’s expansion obligation. As a result, micromanagement heavily lowers the employees’ self-esteem and morale. According to Shuford (2019), micromanagement is a significant factor contributing to low employee morale, motivation, and engagement. Talented and skilled employees do not appreciate micromanagement, and many supervisors would not like getting characterized or associated with such a management style. Micromanagement leads to high turnover, low productivity, and decreased self-esteem as it creates a rift between management and the employees, leading to resistance to change, stagnation, and frustration. Therefore, micromanagement in organizational leadership creates a rift between the leadership and staff as it contributes to low employee self-esteem, increased turnover rates, and reduced productivity.

Micromanagement arises from the organizational structure since an organization with many hierarchical levels creates too much pressure on managers to push their subordinates and make decisions on their behalf (Leong, 2018). According to Leong (2018), understanding the micromanagement leadership style in an organization helps establish its impact on the manager and the employees. According to Leong (2018), one of the leading institutions under criticism for micromanagement includes government institutions known to practice the employee and performance-degrading micromanagement approach. However, such institutions practice the approach because of various factors, including many hierarchies to take charge of and limited financial resources.

Consequently, many employees in the public sector lack motivation and lead a work-life with no control over their job, thereby losing interest and lacking innovation. Such working conditions lack critical organizational leadership aspects, such as empowerment. According to Kim & Beehr (2018), empowering leadership involves delegation, fostering responsibilities and self-leadership, developing employee support, providing authority and autonomy, and involving employees in decision-making processes. Contrary to this, Kim & Beehr (2018) note that the lack of responsibility dispensation from supervisors to the employees leads to demotivation as the employees sit around waiting for future instructions. The employees lack appreciation for their job and would rather have their job taken over by the superiors who feel that they can do a better job. As a result, the organizational structure is the main contributor to the implementation of micromanagement, which harms employee job motivation and engagement.

One of the main effects of micromanagement is low self-esteem among the employees. Regardless of job adaptation among the employees, the psychological outcomes of micromanagement measures in an organization involve low innovative behaviors, turnover rate, and self-esteem. According to Bani-Melhem et al. (2021), staff characteristics such as personality traits can moderate their response to abusive management. However, while the impact of personality is far more complex than one might think, some levels of micromanagement can push employees to a critical point of low self-esteem. Bani-Melhem et al. (2021) show that self-esteem is a general evaluation of personal growth, which refers to self-liking or self-worth. Employees with high self-esteem favor their characteristics and view themselves as valued, accepted, competent, and capable. Contrary to this, employees with low self-esteem view themselves as devalued, incompetent, unskilled, and useless (Visser, 2018). Micromanagement is a significant contributor to low self-esteem among employees within an organization.

High turnover rates result from administrative or organizational decision-making, which neglects the employees’ interests or working conditions, resulting in low morale (Collin et al., 2002). According to Ruixue (2021), the main contributor to high employee turnover in an institution is chaotic responsibilities and unreasonable wages. Consequently, frustration arises among employees, leading to high turnover rates across different departments. To ensure increased job performance while reducing risks, micromanagement pushes employees to their limits with numerous job responsibilities as the salaries remain unchanged. Micromanagement is an organizational management style associated with extreme control of the employee responsibilities and positions. According to Leong (2018), organizational leaders implementing the micromanagement leadership style do it out of uncertainty and hire personnel with lesser skills to reduce any competition from the new employees. As a result, the recruits feel more responsibilities placed upon them and are unsure of their skills to complete the tasks. Consequently, the employees leave their jobs due to the high pressure to perform, contributing to a high turnover rate.

Micromanagement is associated with low employee productivity because of low motivation levels and exclusion from crucial decision-making processes on matters affecting the employees (Delgado et al., 2015). Optimal work performance only occurs if the organization effectively and reliably manages human resources. According to Eliyana et al. (2019), organizational leaders are important in creating supportive and conducive environments for the employees. Such a situation enables talent mapping, where the employee competencies fit into the work environment and organizational culture. Micromanagement does not provide a suitable environment for talent management. It involves dispatching decisions from the leadership to the subordinates without inclusivity and assessing the conditions in job roles. The result of such leadership tendencies is the creation of frustration and a decline in morale as it leads to challenges in the organizational environment. The annoying boss who questions every decision made by an employee and searches for minor errors damages the department’s efficiency and threatens the organization’s future. As a result, micromanagement is a significant risk to the organization’s survival as it leads to low productivity and loss of talent.

Problem Statement

One of the central concerns associated with micromanagement is employers’ lack of understanding of the set of behaviors that qualify as micromanagement and their outcomes for employee performance and well-being. At this point, there is enough research to confidently claim that micromanagement is as prevalent as it is detrimental to employees’ productivity and overall well-being (Barnes (2015; Collins & Collins, 2002; Delgado, et al., 2015; Grandey, et al., 2002; Totterdell & Holman, 2003; White, 2010; Leith, 2016; Shurford, 2019).

Micromanagement is also known to affect employee morale and job satisfaction, increasing the employee turnover rate (Leith, 2016). The problem is that long-term micromanagement as a leadership style results in low employee morale, high turnover, and reduced productivity (Leith, 2016). Furthermore, it is important to conduct research to understand what causes micromanagement to have a negative effect and provide sufficient evidence to improve the behavior of such management style when working with a different characters of employees’. The data that is available shows the extent to which micromanagement harms workplace climate and employee well-being. Sulphey and Upadhyay (2019) argue that the leadership style often leads to employee harassment because micromanagers focus on non-consequential and trivial tasks. Some employees have their supervisors insisting that they should not change their phone passwords to allow listening to the workers’ messages (Barnes & Spangenburg, 2018). Shuford (2019) also finds that micromanagement results in employees’ feeling like the management does not trust them, which affects their job engagement and increases turnover intentions. Employees do not feel appreciated, and their attachment to the job suffers.

Barnes and Spangenburg (2018), argue that micromanagement is detrimental to employee morale and their ability (and willingness) to learn new job procedures and tasks. Therefore, it appears vital to study micromanagement to fully understand its underlying mechanisms, its effects on employees and the organizational environment, and ways to eradicate it. Furthermore, employers, managers, and HR practitioners (among other professionals capable of preventing micromanagement in the workplace) should be equipped with sufficient knowledge of micromanagement and how it affects workers in the long term. In that case, they can prevent it in an informed manner. As a result, when protected from the harmful impact of micromanagement, the performance, morale, and job satisfaction of their organizations’ employees will improve.

Purpose Statement

This proposed qualitative exploratory study explores why micromanagement is not an effective leadership style in the long term due to its negative impact on employee morale, turnover intentions, and productivity. It prevents employees from working in a healthy and supportive work environment. Despite the prevalence of micromanagement, it remains under-researched, which is why many managers fail to recognize micromanagement behaviors in themselves and their colleagues. There is a need to investigate micromanagement further and increase the public’s awareness of its detrimental effects.

The population participating in the study is 25 employees from Waffle House and a manufacturing company in Nashville, Tennessee. The fact that the participants are recruited from two different workplaces and belong to different industries will increase the likelihood of the findings being representative and transferable for the workplace across varying industries. While the proposed sample is limited, it can be extended due to the data collection method selected, namely, semi-structured interviews. Administering and analyzing semi-structured interviews requires much time coordination. Extending the sample might further complicate data collection and analysis. The current number of participants, 25, appears enough to provide insight into the topic yet make the research process manageable.

The current study will provide additional evidence on how long-term micromanagement influences low employee morale, high turnover, and reduced productivity. The findings are expected to be valuable for further understanding of the condition contributing to the increasing level of turnover, reduced productivity, and low employee morale in organizations with micromanagement leadership styles. Also, strategies preventing micromanagement or reducing its effect are expected to be revealed. The study is expected to reveal other notable tendencies that can help managers and HR practitioners deal with micromanagement and its impact on employees. For instance, Aguilar and Kosheleva (2021) find that the more diverse the workplace is, the less pronounced the effects of micromanagement are on its employees.

Research Questions

As is typical for qualitative research designs, there are no straightforward research questions formulated at this point. The goal is to look at the data collected during the first few semi-structured interviews and identify meaningful trends that can help determine the exact focus of further data collection and analysis. However, the preliminary research questions are as follows:

What are responders’ self-reported responses to micromanagement?
Do responders believe that micromanagement affects their performance, morale, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions?
In responders’ view, why does micromanagement occur?
In responders’ view, what can be done to lower the prevalence of micromanagement or decrease its negative impact on employee productivity, morale, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions?

However, this list of questions will be revised, and follow-up questions will be added as the first data collected to help identify the general trends in responders’ perceptions of and experiences with micromanagement.

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