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What you're describing doesn't sound like micromanagement, it just sounds like a manager who's fussy about all the little details. Some people really care about the small details, but there's a way of doing that correctly, especially when it's directed towards your subordinate (for example, asking why something was done a certain way - maybe there's a good reason - instead of saying it's wrong). If it was done in a way that caused you to leave then it's obviously bad.

Micromanagement is usually more about the manager taking a normal-sized task and breaking it up to steps that are too small to make sense on their own, then checking in with the employee on every step. This blocks the employee from developing their own method of work, applying creative thinking, etc.


The micromanagement you're talking about actually came directly from the top (CEO), which was even more awkward. For example, the first month on the job the CEO set up a daily meeting with me to talk details about how my team was supposed to accomplish the goals he had set out for us. To the point of asking exactly about the schema of the database we needed, what our ETL pipeline was going to look like, hand-picking an external technical resource to help with the task (who then no-showed on the deliverable, nearly killing the CEO of embarrassment).

I found it extremely bizarre to say the least. The organization was at a scale where it made no sense for him to be that involved in the minutia. And here my boss told me I was lucky to be getting so much time with such an important and brilliant man...

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