Overview
The team experiences high stress levels related to micromanagement. The team members express their dissatisfaction with repeating detailed control checks that require them to repeat weekly task lists for cross-reference. Some members believe that their skills are underutilized or not suited for the tasks. The managers remark that they are following the standard formula as they do with other groups. This dissatisfaction with work has resulted in a loss of productivity and internal conflicts within the team.
Management Approaches
A manager ensures that a team, project, or company runs smoothly and operates to its best ability. They need to supervise the team members, their functions, and tasks and help them navigate the rising challenges of the project. Without a manager or a leader, a team can quickly fall apart as it lacks a person who would unite its members in the shared effort to reach a specific goal.
Managers can have four primary styles: planning, organizing, leading and controlling (Forth and Bryson, 2019). Planning managers focus on establishing a plan of action for the team, while the organizing managers focus on establishing strong, self-reliant connections within the group (Forth and Bryson, 2019). Leading and controlling managers are similar in their roles as leaders, but their approaches differ. Leading managers inspire workers to follow them by example, while controlling managers focus on having a solid hold on the whole project to ensure maximum efficiency (Forth and Bryson, 2019). Each style has its benefits and negatives, and a manager needs to decide which type fits their project the most.
Recommendations
The described situation signifies that the managers have not correctly analyzed the team’s capabilities and therefore have not planned the most efficient way to work. Their style seems to be a controlling management style: they micromanage and design every work detail.
While it can be helpful to be aware of what is happening, strict micromanagement upsets the workers and interferes with their projects. The most optimal solution would be to overhaul the management’s understanding of each team member’s skill and rearrange their roles. It is just as important to give them a reasonable level of freedom without slowing down their work with detailed cross-reference reports. Once that is achieved, the team will be able to realize their skills rather than feel discourages.
Reference
Forth, J., & Bryson, A. (2019). Management practices and SME performance. Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 66(4), 527-558. Web.