[cocoa19]

The opposite of micromanagement can be damaging as well. Let's call this "no management".

I quit a job where I would only see the manager on 1-1 meetings, and was clueless about the state of the business and how to help team members succeed and get promoted.

I stopped discussing work topics on the 1-1 meetings since I didn't see any point, and eventually quit, as well as other team members.

[grecy]

I know all about this!

I worked at a large Telco and after a year my manager retired. For the next 18 months I literally thought I didn't have a manager. Nobody ever came to check on me or assign me work (I had tickets to work on and fires to extinguish). When HR asked who my manager was and I had to tell them I didn't have one.

They were shocked and explained that by default the manager of my previous manager became mine, and I had to tell them we'd never met.

In 18 months he had never once come by my desk, called or sent me a single email. It was company policy to have monthly one on ones with all employees.

Of course, after that he got promoted!

[c22]

Of course he got promoted! They clearly determined he'd be better off with fewer direct reports and moved him up another rung.

[eikenberry]

A my last $job I had a direct manager for the first 3 months then they moved on and a replacement was never found. 2 years later his manager (my ex-managers manager) quit and was never replaced. I worked there for just about 3 years total with no real manager.

Luckily for them I'm very independent and they had a lot of obvious problems to work on. But it was rather silly.

[ryandrake]

Reminds me of Forgotten Employee [1]

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17332440

[thunderbong]

I agree that 'no management' is really damaging but I don't think that's that the opposite of micromanagement is.

Micromanagement is a 'type' of management. As others have mentioned, it primarily arises from lack of trust or having a very rigid way of looking at things.

The manager that you mention should hardly be called that. These people are the ones who have been put in their position without acknowledging their strengths and weaknesses and will obviously end up back-firing.

[mensetmanusman]

Interesting, I thrive with as little management interaction as possible. Ha. monthly 1:1 is more than enough.

[nfriedly]

As a counterpoint, I think I did some of the best work to my career when I only talked to my manager every 3 to 6 months. I talked to other people on my team, I talked to our customers, and I figured out for myself what was important, and just did it.

I ended up shipping something that literally became the deal-maker for prospective customers who were considering us and a competitor.