| The advice here seems practical but only if you have a very fixed mindset about who people are. That might be appropriate sometimes but I think it’s worth trying to heal relationships. On the theory that managers are also humans, try to imagine why they are micromanaging. One of the biggest problems in computerland is that we promote technical specialists to manage people and strategy. Many people are far more comfortable with, and nostalgic for, the craft of programming. Such a manager ends up dictating solutions that would have been brilliant about 5 years ago, but which don’t match current practice. Other managers are coping with the trauma of employees who wasted tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars on things that don’t work out. This manager trusts themself technically so reluctantly (actually not so reluctantly) they try to dictate solutions. The common characteristic here is someone who perceives themselves to have high technical skill but very shaky skills with management and hiring. They feel fear and uncertainty in that domain and fall back on technical skill + their new authority to command people. Imagine if you were in draining meetings all day struggling with abstract squishy problems under limited information. They want the joy of feeling _smart_ again. Some organizations can support such a manager to buff their people skills but that’s rare. If this person’s ego can take it, it’s worth using your 1:1 to point out the dysfunction and trying to ask them what it would take for them to be more hands-off. They probably are in some kind of pain that causes them to micromanage and maybe in a small way you can relieve that pain. This won’t work with everyone! If your boss has ego or narcissism issues they cannot see you as an equal. It is often a no-win situation but in some cases I still think it’s worth trying. |
Very good point. To add, technical managers who like the craft of programming often cannot understand engineers who use different approaches to delivering projects. This is because there is NO ONE WAY to perform intellectual tasks but the craftsman fails to recognize that.
Eg: If the manager prefers a PR with every corner case covered, they would never understand an iterative development strategy with smaller PRs, leading to them nitpicking on every PR. Code reviews become a toxic nightmare then.