“The invisible micromanagement is real, but it’s often an indicator that there’s something deeper brewing.” — Darren Kanthal
Brief Summary/Overview:
In this episode of The Kanthal Group LinkedIn Live, we go deep into the concept of invisible micromanagement. We explore how it silently affects both professional and personal lives, especially among high-performing women. As coaches, we discuss how this invisible mental load can lead to burnout, resentment, and exhaustion, and why it’s essential to address it head-on. Rachel shares her experience coaching women who juggle leadership roles at work with managing households, while Darren provides insights on how trust—or the lack of it—can amplify the need for micromanagement. We also highlight practical strategies for delegating effectively and breaking free from the endless cycle of overdoing.
Key Takeaways:
- The difference between invisible and visible micromanagement and how it affects leaders at home and work.
How invisible micromanagement leads to burnout and resentment, especially in women who juggle many roles. - Why speaking up and trusting others is critical in avoiding micromanagement.
- Practical strategies, like time audits and clearer delegation, to reduce the mental load.
- Why trusting yourself is as important as trusting others when it comes to delegation and management.
Timestamps:
- 0:00 – Introduction: Darren and Rachel discuss technology glitches and introduce the topic.
- 2:16 – The episode begins by introducing invisible micromanagement and why it’s more of a challenge for Rachel’s clients than Darren’s.
- 3:30 – Rachel explains the mental load of keeping track of everything in her head and how it affects women.
- 6:00 – Darren shares his frustration and why invisible micromanagement doesn’t resonate with his clients as much.
- 7:35 – Rachel dives deeper into how invisible micromanagement leads to burnout, resentment, and exhaustion.
- 10:00 – Darren and Rachel discuss trust: Why the inability to trust others—or yourself—leads to micromanagement.
- 14:00 – Darren shares insights on how trust, communication, and delegation help to avoid micromanaging.
- 18:00 – Rachel reflects on why high-performing women often struggle with delegation at work and home.
- 20:00 – Darren shares strategies he uses with his clients to help identify micromanagement patterns and how to build trust.
- 30:00 – Conclusion: Darren and Rachel invite listeners to reflect on their own micromanagement tendencies and share their thoughts in the comments.
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Transcript:
Darren: All right. Well, Riverside says we’re streaming, but LinkedIn does not.
Rachel: Okay.
Darren: So I guess we’ll see how this works out.
Rachel: Well, somebody’s recording something, so.
Darren: Well, kind of annoying. Anyway, hi.
Rachel: Hi. Hi, people.
Darren: Let’s assume… there it is.
Rachel: We’re very technologically savvy.
Darren: All right, It’s really weird. I think we’re live. I think we’ve been live. So all of this flubbing around here for the last couple of minutes, I think is gonna be part of our episode number three. Technology at its finest. What are we gonna do?
Rachel: We’re coaches. It’s not what we do. We don’t do technology.
Darren: Well, we do, but we didn’t stay at the Holiday Inn last night, right? Isn’t that the joke from the commercials?
Rachel: Yes, you’re funny. Speaking of jokes, what’s your joke, Darren?
Darren: Okay. You know where the Colorado Rockies play at Coors Field? It holds about 50,000 fans. It’s just a ballpark figure.
Rachel: Yeah, I got it, though. I mean, right? One out of three. I got it.
Darren: Haha. You know any jokes
Rachel: I don’t have any jokes. I’m not the jokester. No, I know. You’re the jokester. You’re the storyteller. You’re the extrovert, the talker, the networker. Not me. All right, let’s get busy here for people that are actually watching to maybe learn something other than watch us banter back and forth.
Darren: No jokes. No jokes.
Darren: All right, so today’s topic is about invisible management or invisible micromanagement. And for full disclosure, this is more of a you thing than a me thing. For a little extra context, it’s kind of funny when you and I get into these conversations in our house, which are often topics that come up in our coaching sessions and then we talk about it. You primarily coach women, primarily corporate women, leaders of organizations who also happen to be moms and wives, sisters and daughters. And this idea of invisible micromanagement comes up a lot with your clients, a little less so with mine. And I think it’s also important, as you’re smirking at me, is when you tell me some of these stories, I get so annoyed and frustrated with this concept of invisible micromanagement.
Because it’s not that it’s not relevant, it’s just not prevalent in my life, or at least I don’t think it is, and that of my clients. But it is a great topic. So, go ahead.
Rachel: I was going to say, I wonder if it doesn’t come up with your clients because it doesn’t come up with you. It’s not a thing for you. And therefore you might not think to ask it. For anybody who’s listening to this, Darren and I, we’ve got this, “Is it a man thing? Is it a woman thing? Is it a his clients, my clients?” In the comments, everybody needs to be Team Rachel and be on my side and tell me it’s not just me and my clients. It’s just Darren who doesn’t invisibly micromanage. Let’s tell everybody what invisible micromanagement is. You can’t tell them because you don’t know. Never mind, I’ll take over.
Darren: My God.
Rachel: Okay, invisible micromanagement is when you’re keeping track of everything in your own head, and everything meaning things that you have delegated to other people, things that don’t belong to you. Like, Darren, I would be micromanaging things that you do in the house, like right, you’re in charge of the garbage and you’re in charge of all the laundry. And so I would be managing in my head, like I need to remind him to take the garbage out and I need to remind him to get garbage bags. And I need to remind him that I’ve got my nice sweater in there and that needs to be on the gentle cycle and lay flat to dry. And I gotta remind him that we need laundry detergent when it’s not mine to manage. I hear this a lot with my clients, with their teams.
They’ve given responsibilities to individuals and in their head, they’re working through the day and they’re like, “Well, I gotta check in on that thing I asked so-and-so to do, and I gotta remind them to double check on the hotel reservation.” Or, “My husband said he was making dinner tonight and I know we don’t have the broccoli, so I need to remind him.” So you’re managing all this stuff that is not yours to manage, and it distracts you, but most importantly, it exhausts you. Then you become resentful because you still feel like you’re doing all the work, but it’s not yours to do. So you’re causing your own problem. That is what invisible micromanagement looks like on my end.
Rachel: And then, you know, something happens and maybe you don’t blow up at work, but you blow up at home. Then you have to apologize. Then you wonder what’s wrong with you. Then you have to get coaching or go to therapy. It’s this whole downstream effect.
Darren: All right, so what is the difference between invisible and visible micromanagement?
Rachel: Okay, so invisible, it’s all in your head. Many times women, and not just women but mainly my clients, aren’t communicating it. They’re invisibly managing it, and then visibly, one of two things will happen. They’ll follow up, ask the question, send the text, or just go and do it themselves because they’re unsure it’ll be done, there’s uncertainty, and anxiety builds up. So maybe the invisible micromanagement leads to micromanaging. Aha.
Darren: Let me put this in my words, I got a little confused, to be honest.
When you talk about the invisible micromanagement of your clients, it’s often associated with home. It’s the mental tally of all the stuff that’s gotta get done. Like, Bobby’s clothes need to be washed. My partner is playing golf, and I have to make sure he’s got a sandwich to play golf, and his orange golf shirt is clean. I’m oversimplifying, but it’s keeping the household together in addition to the demands of being a working professional. Your clients are often high-performing executive women, high-performing at work, high-performing at home.
Rachel: Yes, and I cannot disagree with you on that. A lot of it does stem from home. It happens at work too, but I see less of it there. Clients think about it, they’re still ruminating. They’re still in their minds, not able to let it go. But you’re right— a lot of it is at home. So there’s CEOs at work, there’s CEOs at home. They’re micromanaging, they’re overdoing, they are carrying the invisible load. And they haven’t totally transferred the skill from work to home. And there’s a whole bunch of reasons why that happens that I coach my clients on, but they haven’t made that leap at home to be like, no, you said you have it.
Darren: You started to go to the impact a few minutes ago. As you talk to your clients and they’re managing this invisible load and invisibly micromanaging life, what starts to happen? My word is always “explode” because that’s how I express anger and discontent. That may not be true for your clients, but how do they start to ramp up when they’re overloaded? What’s the blow-up or explosion?
Rachel: Typically, what happens is the over-managing and over-doing lets your partner or team off the hook. You’re the one who just does it all, so everyone else can kick back. They don’t step in. So, you double your efforts, doing more because it’s easier than slowing down and going through the communication. Like we talked about two weeks ago in our LinkedIn Live, the implicit and explicit agreements, and communication to trust that the other person will handle it.
You have to let go of doing things your way. This creates a sense of over-control, which starts to burn you out. There’s no break, no rest— whether it’s mental or physical. You’re just doing, doing, doing. So what happens is the things that restore you, like sleep or working out, start to chip away. You think, “I’ll just sleep a little less, or get up earlier to work out.” Then you start skipping the workout. Eventually, you let go of the things that improve your well-being, and focus on overdoing all the other things. If they would just get out of the way, others could step up. I see my clients’ health deteriorate, and they become anxious and depressed. They feel invisible, like they’re not recognized, and they’re just exhausted—so exhausted all the time.
Darren: What’s that term you mentioned recently? People feel like they’re at a boil?
Rachel: Yeah, I’ve heard that a lot. They feel like they’re constantly boiling and just want to come down to a simmer. There’s so much to manage. When we do a thought audit, which is time-consuming but worth it, they start tracking everything they’re keeping a tally of that’s not theirs to manage. Of course, they’re boiling! They’re adding unnecessary stuff to their plates along with their own responsibilities. It’s a boiling point.
Darren: Not to the way you’re describing it, no. I mean, there are thoughts going through my head, but…
Rachel: Like what?
Darren: You know my mom well enough. She raised me to speak up. Now, when I was younger, I didn’t speak up with much courtesy, but what I hear in your stories is a reluctance to speak up. People aren’t asking for help or support. They’re not saying, “I need this done.” There’s no speaking up. Instead, they micromanage invisibly. And they don’t ask for help because they fear retaliation. That’s a key ingredient to invisible micromanagement, and that leads to boiling over.
Rachel: Yes, absolutely. I didn’t speak up for years in our relationship for a lot of reasons—many of them my own. I was retaliated against when I did speak up in other relationships. I was a single parent for a long time, even when I was married, and it became habitual to do everything myself. Every few months, I’d lose it and break down, and you’d wonder what was going on. I didn’t know how to tell you. In organizations, if it’s not safe to speak up, of course people are going to micromanage everything, both visibly and invisibly.
Darren: And this is where life’s interrelatedness comes in. We all have our “isms.” You are you no matter what role you’re playing—whether it’s at work or home. We don’t live in silos. The idea of “checking your emotions at the door” is nonsense. If you and I are arguing, I carry that with me through the day. Yes, I can compartmentalize it, but it’s there. I share that because when our clients bring up certain topics, they’re often surface-level. The invisible micromanagement is real, but it’s also often an indicator that there’s something deeper brewing. I think it’s that underlying issue that’s at the core of why people micromanage, whether visibly or invisibly.
It’s about lacking trust—trust in others and in ourselves. That’s why people micromanage. They don’t trust their job security or the people around them. They micromanage to seem irreplaceable, and they don’t trust the people they’re managing because they’ve never communicated why that trust eroded.
Rachel: Trust is a huge piece of it. We don’t live in silos. You can’t separate who you are at home from who you are at work. At the core, trying to be two different people is exhausting. Externally, you have to trust others. Internally, you have to trust yourself. You have to trust that you’ve communicated properly and that, no matter what happens, you’ll be okay. That’s the big one.
At the end of the day, we’ve all felt every emotion possible. We’ve survived them. So, if someone doesn’t do something you asked them to do, you’ll feel disappointed, but you’ll survive that. That’s why holding onto things and managing them in your head just causes more stress. You’ll survive.
Darren: That resonates with me. A lot of my clients struggle with trusting themselves, which leads to them holding onto things instead of delegating. Instead of trusting themselves to delegate, they take it all on. When I see my clients in this churn of micromanagement, other than a thought audit, I guide them through a time audit—both at work and at home.
Rachel: A time audit, yes! We look at their calendar from the time they get up until they go to bed. Then we go over what their actual priorities are. What are they hired for? What are their KPIs? What responsibilities are actually theirs? You do that at home and at work, and then figure out what to do, delete, defer, or delegate. Then, you have to manage yourself. I had a client ask me, “How do I manage my brain?” I told her it’s about managing yourself. When you want to reload the dishwasher after someone else did it, you manage yourself and back out. You practice staying in your lane.
Darren: That’s adulting!
Rachel: Exactly! You have to practice managing yourself and your brain. And it helps if the people you delegate to are trustworthy. You need to set very clear expectations upfront. If you delegate, be specific—start to finish. If something doesn’t happen, what’s the consequence? That way, you avoid the cycle of, “See? I knew I couldn’t trust anyone. I might as well do it myself.”
Darren: Our clients micromanage in different ways. It’s fascinating. Some over-involve, some invisible micromanage. I have clients who micromanage specific people more than others. So, we identify who they’re micromanaging, why, and what they’re delegating, if anything. Then we figure out whether they’re communicating why trust was eroded.
Rachel: That’s so key! I think it’s important to step back and widen the lens. It helps to ask if you’re doing it with everyone or just certain people. Trust can fall into those same buckets, right? They’re still mentally keeping track of everything. I want to know, though—if you’re not invisibly managing things, what’s going on in your brain
Darren: Jokes, mountain biking, what’s for dinner… I delegate, and then my brain moves on. If I delegate, I’m done. But if I don’t get a response after some time, I follow up. But once I send the email or make the request, I don’t think about it until I need to follow up.
Rachel: I’m not used to that working out for me.
Darren: For me, most of the time, it does.
Rachel: That’s interesting. My experience has been that if I delegate or ask for something, there’s often retaliation, or it’s not done.
Darren: Is that an old story or a new one?
Rachel: Old story, before you and I, but it’s definitely been a pattern. I’m fascinated by this now. But one thing I’ve noticed with my clients is that the impact on their health is huge. It started coming up when I was working on the functional nutrition therapy side. Their stress levels were so high that it was affecting their health—gut issues, weight gain, hormone imbalance. The number one outward sign is their health being compromised.
Darren: Got it. Anything else you want to share?
Rachel: I think that’s it.
Darren: Well, we’re back next Tuesday at our regular time.
Rachel: Yes, and I won’t be micromanaging all the details that have to occur between now and then. Anything else you want to say?
Darren: For those listening, if you’re willing to put it in the comments or message us, Rachel and I debate whether invisible micromanagement is more of a woman thing. I’ve never heard many men talk about it. What do you think? Is invisible micromanagement a gendered issue? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Rachel: I was thinking about that on my walk today, and I was annoyed with you because you don’t experience it like I do. And then I was envious! What’s in your brain if that’s not?
Darren: All right, let’s leave it there. See you next time!
Rachel: See you next Tuesday!