Happy Thursday, everyone. I'm Frank Richardson, an organisational psychologist observing the workplace with curiosity and care. Each week, I share insights to help HR leaders better understand the people behind the processes and build cultures where both individuals and organisations can thrive.
This week in workplace whiplash 🌀
A quick snapshot of work right now, where experiences that were once considered "personal" are increasingly becoming organisational conversations:
🌡️ Menopause Support Is Slowly Entering the Workplace
Despite growing evidence that menopause can affect work experiences and retention, only 10% of employers currently offer menopause-related support or accommodations. Experts are calling it the next frontier of workplace benefits, particularly as more organisations look for ways to retain experienced women during peak leadership years.
👉HR Dive🚪 The Room Isn't Locked. It's Labelled.
A SHRM webinar explored why HR is often excluded from strategic conversations. The argument? The more HR becomes known for solving HR problems, the harder it becomes to be seen as a business partner helping solve business problems.
👉SHRM📦 One in Three Employers Expect Redundancies
A new Acas survey found that a third of UK employers expect to make redundancies before January 2027, rising to almost half of large organisations. The findings point to continued uncertainty for both employers and employees as businesses navigate economic pressure and upcoming employment law changes.
👉HR Grapevine
And to today's main topic: how pressure and uncertainty can change the way people lead…
😨 When you're under pressure, what are you most likely to do?
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You may have come across this LinkedIn post from Eric Partaker that's been doing the rounds, showing that one of the biggest leadership mistakes is trying to control everything yourself. TL;DR: micromanagement = bad.
It immediately reminded me of a manager I had early in my career who would rewrite my emails before they went out. It was Micromanagement 101. I assumed she didn't trust me, I thought she was a pretty terrible leader, and eventually, I quit.
But here I am, many years later, after managing teams myself, looking back on those interactions a little differently. What changed wasn't my opinion on micromanagement. It was my understanding of what leadership actually feels like.
The more responsibility you carry, the more uncertainty comes with it. Projects drift off track. Deadlines move. People leave. And suddenly there are outcomes attached to your name that you don't fully control.
What surprised me most was how strong the urge can be to get closer to the work when that happens. To check one more thing. Review one more document. Sit in on one more meeting.
Not because those things necessarily improve the outcome, but because they help reduce uncertainty. They create the feeling that you'll spot a problem before it becomes your problem.
And once I noticed that instinct in myself, I started wondering whether I'd misjudged some of the micromanagers I'd worked for. In some cases, what looked like a need for control may have instead been a response to pressure, uncertainty, and anxiety.
🧠The behavioural science lens
From the outside, micromanagement can look irrational. From the inside, it can feel completely reasonable. That's what makes it so difficult to spot in ourselves:
Control can feel like progress: One of the most uncomfortable parts of leadership is that you're responsible for outcomes you don't fully control. When uncertainty increases, people naturally look for ways to regain a sense of predictability. The concept of the illusion of control describes our tendency to overestimate how much influence we have over uncertain situations, particularly when the stakes are high. Checking in, reviewing work, and staying close to every detail can create the sense that we're reducing risk, even when we're mostly reducing uncertainty for ourselves.
Micromanagement can accidentally reward itself: Imagine a leader lying awake worrying about a project. The next morning they ask for more updates, review every document, and leave feeling calmer than they did the day before. That reduction in anxiety acts as a reward. Behavioural psychologists describe this as negative reinforcement. The behaviour continues because it removes an unpleasant feeling, regardless of whether it improves the work itself.
Leader stress rarely stays contained: The difficulty is that while micromanagement may reduce anxiety for the leader, it often creates anxiety for everyone else. Employees don't just respond to decisions; they respond to behaviour. As research shows, management behaviour has a significant influence on employee wellbeing, trust, and engagement. A leader who is constantly checking, reviewing, and monitoring may think they're preventing problems while their team experiences something very different.
🚀What this means for leaders
If micromanagement is sometimes an anxiety response, then solving it requires more than simply telling people to delegate.
Notice when you're seeking reassurance, not information: Most leaders can think of a moment when they suddenly wanted another update, another review, or another meeting. Sometimes that's because the work genuinely needs attention. Sometimes it's because uncertainty is uncomfortable. The distinction matters. Information helps you make better decisions but reassurance simply helps you feel better for a little while.
Be careful about confusing visibility with control: One of the easiest traps in leadership is believing that seeing more means controlling more (it rarely does). You can attend every meeting, review every document, and copy yourself into every email and still be blindsided by something important. The goal isn't to know everything. It's to build enough trust, communication, and capability that you don't have to.
Treat leader wellbeing as a team issue: We spend a lot of time talking about employee wellbeing, but leaders are often expected to absorb pressure without much support themselves. The problem is that stress rarely stays contained. It shows up in decision-making, communication, trust, and autonomy. A leader's anxiety doesn't remain a personal issue for very long. It quickly becomes a team experience.
💬 Final thoughts
The funny thing about micromanagement is that it rarely starts with someone deciding to become a terrible boss. Instead, it usually starts with a project that's gone sideways, a difficult stakeholder, a looming deadline, or a bad experience that still sits in the back of your mind.
Then comes the extra update. The extra review. The extra meeting.
Before long, you're rewriting somebody's emails and wondering why your team seems less engaged than they used to.
How's the depth of today's edition?
If something here speaks to you, I’d love to hear it.
Until next week,
Frank
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