I've been on both sides, both as a "servant leader" and as a "servant".
Context matters. The only time I micro-managed a team myself, was when someone at the top was instigating a blame culture. I did explain all the goals in detail to the people, and explained why it mattered that we delivered exactly according to the specs, even though it wasn't really functional. Sales always blamed IT for failing to deliver according to specs, while the sales intake was actually fubarred, resulting in way too low quotes and everyone blaming IT, resulting in a negative downfall.
I have been micro-managed about 3 years ago for about 3 months, but this was when I was consulting in a highly political organisation with very complex regulation (EU airspace), so it was part of my initial training. Once trust was there I spent most of my time engaging with all the counterparts according to the explicit and implicit protocol and rules ("continuous improvement manager" for the curious, but what's in a name...)
What I have done quite a few times, is not micro-managing, but micro-coaching: sitting next to a person every waking hour available for help, assistance and spotting potential frustrations. This is usually part of a bigger, risky change trajectory where I decide to start with the one person "impossible to convert"; in a lot of cases these people actually became some of the ambassadors of the whole project, and this is a big win for such projects...
Edit: some more details regarding the "being micro-managed" part.
Context matters. The only time I micro-managed a team myself, was when someone at the top was instigating a blame culture. I did explain all the goals in detail to the people, and explained why it mattered that we delivered exactly according to the specs, even though it wasn't really functional. Sales always blamed IT for failing to deliver according to specs, while the sales intake was actually fubarred, resulting in way too low quotes and everyone blaming IT, resulting in a negative downfall.
I have been micro-managed about 3 years ago for about 3 months, but this was when I was consulting in a highly political organisation with very complex regulation (EU airspace), so it was part of my initial training. Once trust was there I spent most of my time engaging with all the counterparts according to the explicit and implicit protocol and rules ("continuous improvement manager" for the curious, but what's in a name...)
What I have done quite a few times, is not micro-managing, but micro-coaching: sitting next to a person every waking hour available for help, assistance and spotting potential frustrations. This is usually part of a bigger, risky change trajectory where I decide to start with the one person "impossible to convert"; in a lot of cases these people actually became some of the ambassadors of the whole project, and this is a big win for such projects...
Edit: some more details regarding the "being micro-managed" part.