[brucehart]

Some people work better with daily accountability and need help breaking up tasks so they don't get overwhelmed. I worked for a boss that managed this way and no one felt micromanaged. Having clear objectives and giving a 1-2 minute daily verbal update didn't seem like a "nightmare environment" at all.

We had some members on our team that were similar to those the poster is describing. For those the team lead was more explicit about setting tasks and for others he gave more autonomy. The daily standups were a chance to discover what's holding people back from making the progress needed to complete larger team goals on time. I was also skeptical of the process when I started the job, but it actually works very well.