The Helicopter Parents of the Workforce
Jake Tuber's Work Wise Newsletter
Helicopter parenting is the phenomenon where parents hover over their kids, trying to control every aspect of their lives. These parents have constant presence and involvement in all sorts of day-to-day minutia. We tend to knock helicopter parents for being overbearing, but we rarely knock their level of effort. They put in all that work because they care.
That’s why I was so taken by this recent piece from Kathryn Jezer-Morton in The Cut’s “Brooding” newsletter: It flips the narrative and exposes helicopter parenting for what it really is: lazy.
And the management parallels are spot on.
The piece’s main argument is that helicopter parenting, while seemingly overbearing, is actually a way for parents to take the path of least resistance. By controlling their kids' every move, they avoid having to teach them valuable life skills and the independence they need to thrive.
“Sometimes it’s harder to parent your kids to become independent than it is to helicopter — it can be exhausting, and it can be time-consuming,” said Dr. Gail Saltz, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and host of the How Can I Help? podcast from iHeartRadio. As counterintuitive as it may seem, letting kids make mistakes, and being there to support (and clean up after) them, can be more work than doing everything yourself.”
We acknowledge the amount of effort it takes to helicopter-parent, but the truth is that it’s easier for parents to just do everything themselves. It’s the same with management.
Helicopter parenting and micromanagement share striking similarities. Just like helicopter parents, micromanagers prefer to exert control rather than invest time and energy into developing their team members' skills. For instance, a micromanaging boss may choose to revise every report themselves instead of providing constructive feedback and guidance to their team. While this approach may seem like a display of diligence, it's actually a form of laziness, as it takes more effort to empower employees and teach them to excel independently.
Micromanagers will claim they need to be involved because of the cost of getting things wrong. They are not keen to simply dictate the end-goals and parameters but have to be constantly involved with the thought that their involvement is somehow mitigating disaster.
They’re backseat drivers: They not only tell you to get to Cleveland by Tuesday at 10am, but insist on dictating every turn and stop along the way. This may help avoid an occasional traffic jam but stymies the driver.
Micromanagers are the helicopter parents of the workforce. This management style not only hinders employee growth, but also negatively impacts the overall team dynamic. Research has found that micromanagement can lower morale, reduce creativity, and cause a decline in productivity. In the long run, both the team and the organization suffer.
Just like the helicopter parent thinks their parenting style is specific to their children, every micromanager thinks their approach is necessary for their unique circumstances. And just like helicopter parents think they’re doing the basic requisite of active parenting, micromanagers don’t see themselves as micromanagers – they’re just managing.
How do managers know if they’re micromanaging?
Channeling the old Jeff Foxworthy “you might just be a redneck if…” routine, here are some signs that you might just be a micromanager:
Your team members seem hesitant to make decisions or take action without first seeking your approval, even for routine tasks.
You insist on being CC'd on every email related to projects you oversee, even when you don't need to be directly involved.
You email your team to ask for status updates on tasks even when you have no reason to believe that progress is off track.
You become anxious or upset when team members make decisions without consulting you, even if they're well within their purview.
You have a tendency to take over tasks or redo work, believing that only you can meet the necessary standards. Even for things as small as writing emails.
Every day seems to have a set of urgent tasks that require a flurry of emails, Slacks, etc. that were not known just two days prior.
You have difficulty stepping away from work, even during vacations or personal time, as you feel the need to monitor and control everything constantly.
You tend to provide excessive documentation, instructions, or guidelines for tasks.
You're hesitant to introduce new tools or technologies that could alter processes and workflow.
You frequently "borrow" your team members for unrelated projects or tasks.
If a bit of self-reflection has you checking off these boxes, talk to your team. Talk to your boss. Ask for an anonymous 360 to be done. You might be thinking you’re only doing what’s necessary but really it’s just lazy management: the hard part is getting them to grow.