Boss demands that employees remain at their desks and tell him what they’re doing every time they get up, they comply and message him so often that he is forced to reverse the order: ‘Last week I sent him 9 messages in one day’ – FAIL Blog

Maybe these people simply aren’t interested in being leaders, maybe they don’t know how. Maybe, deep down, they’re just afraid of rejection or of failure, and the only way they know they can keep control is through iron-fast grip. Regardless, it remains so that an inability to foster and inspire a belief in their leadership and ability to lead will often result in its place being taken by swaggering bravado and authoritarian micromanagement.

It stands to reason that while this might achieve the ends of seeing the work done in the manner preferred, for a time. As the days, weeks, and months pass, there will be increased burnout, turnover, and less buy-in through anything other than fear of their jobs, which itself will have limited reach and result in a workforce seeming busy and committed rather than doing actual, committed work that seeks to move the needle forward. Presence and working, the act of being seen working become the most important thing in an organization, when, really, they are all ideas that hold little weight in actuality.

The thing is, that ever-increasing oversight and demands for more information can, quite simply, be overwhelmed by an excess of it. The problem with information is the communication, storage, processing, and interpretation of it. All of these things take someone’s time and resources, and at a certain point, when all your coworkers are letting your boss know every time they are leaving their desks, there will be a bottle neck forming and there is going to be a point where they are no longer able to keep up with all of it, or do other tasks that they need to do. Something will, quite simply, have to give.

This worker’s boss demanded that they let them know when they were stepping away because their absence was unprofessional. The intention was probably to get them to acquiesce by simply remaining at their desk, expecting that they would probably be too nervous or reluctant to ask for permission to step away and remain at the desk more often. Instead, they continued to leave their desk whenever necessary, instead offering information—too much information—messaging their boss up to 9 times daily with requests to use the restroom  or to go to the printer. This quickly saw a reversal in their boss’s request, who didn’t mention it further.