This management style is something to run away from. Although micromanaging may make you feel in control, it could actually decrease your team's productivity and motivation, putting your operation at risk.
A Destructive Cycle That Could Damage Your Business
There's a negative connotation around the term "micromanagement". Micromanagement is a management style, but in spite of that, it is not necessarily a good practice. To micromanage means to interfere or meddle in the work of your employees, trying to control everything they do, to make sure they are doing things the way you consider —or management considers— should be done.
Excessive Control Can Make You Lose Control
It might sound strange, but the truth is, holding your grip so tight on everything can not only limit your ability to successfully communicate with your staff, it can also limit your ability to appropriately manage it. Micromanaging forces you to always be the one to put out everyone else's fires when you should be focusing on the tasks that truly require your attention.
Damages Work Environment
There's a lot of nitpicking involved in micromanagement, which leads to loss of trust from your staff. A trusting relationship between the employees and their employer or manager is essential for your operation to run smoothly. Loss of trust damages the work environment, as well as your staff's perception of you, as their leader. At this point, you can expect productivity to drop, as well as an increase in staff turnover.
Micromanagement can suffocate your employees and wear you out.
Unreliable Staff
Your employees are supposed to be independent. The idea to hire staff is so that everyone has a set of different responsibilities attached to their particular role. When you start micromanaging, you basically cut off their ability to work on their own. Your staff will become anxious and uncertain of whether or not they're doing things the right way, which will leave you with highly dependent staff, as they will feel like they can't do anything right or shouldn't take initiative unless you're there.
Burns You Out
Micromanaging is absolutely exhausting. Checking on everything people do, zooming in on every detail is just going to burn you out. Once you reach that point, it will be very hard for you to do what you need to do. Risking your mental well-being puts your business at risk too, as you will not be able to execute your responsibilities properly.
As an owner of an independent insurance agency, it is best that you steer clear of this management style. It can harm you more than it will do you good.