Do Indians Deserve Micromanagers?

The Indian managerial workforce is often accused of being micromanagers. Why are they so?
Because it works.
And sometimes, it's the only thing that works.
Rahul, a Manager at an IT company, reaches home at 9 pm. He's spent his entire day in four meetings with some in his team and other teams. Pushing emails, "where are the analytics on this?" right after the team delivers a piece of their tasks. Walking to each person's desk multiple times. Asking for updates again.
Rahul is a micromanager. Micromanagement means asking for updates so many times that the employee is chained to their desk.
He's found it's the shortest, fastest, most effective way to get work done.
If standing over someone's shoulder is the only way to ensure delivery, managers will do it.
And do we blame them? Yes. Here's a different POV that might upset you: many Indians in the workforce actually deserve the micromanagement they get. Hold on—before you rage-quit this post, hear me out. Consider a new perspective. Have we considered that micromanagers are made, not born?

The Culture That Creates Micromanagers
What Employees see: Tight deadlines, expectations to work long hours, and the need to be visible late into the night. Kudos to the teams who were seen working till 2:00am in the office.
What a Manager Sees: Missed deadlines time after time. A group of youngsters laughing around canteen chai when a critical report was due at 7 pm that same day. "I have to go to the hospital", is an excuse that appears whenever there's a missed deadline. A person that always falls sick on monday mornings only. Document that could be submitted in 3 days are taking 2.5 weeks.
After enough of this, managers drop the niceness and resort to what actually works: anger and control.

So, Why Does Micromanagement Happen in India?

1. No Prioritisation Skills
As Indians, we never learned to prioritize. Nobody has a clear framework for deciding what job to pick up first.
Engineers disappear into 2-day rabbit holes searching for date-format checking libraries. Designers spend 3 days on color corrections. HR teams take 5 days to write a single blog post while completely dropping the planning for a 100-person meetup because "there wasn't enough time." All true stories.
There's been no prioritization muscle built into our work culture. In our minds, prioritization belongs to project managers—those balding men who talk about Curd Rice— it seems like an unappealing, thankless task. It's easier to just have priorities handed down by a manager.
There's been no prioritization muscle built into our work culture. In our minds, prioritization belongs to project managers—those balding men who talk about Curd Rice— it seems like an unappealing, thankless task. It's easier to just have priorities handed down by a manager.
Time is often a free commodity. We have the whole day to finish work, so there's nothing forcing us to brutally prioritize.
2. People & Feeling & Food before Work
11am is when people come into the office.
Then they do the last day's sweep, some emails, some calls, standups.
Lunch at 1:00pm, up to 2:00 p.m., including a coffee and a walk.
Realistically, real work starts at 2:00 p.m. 4:30 is chai time, and who doesn't want to talk to others about a bad day? Then 5:30 back to the desk, and by 7:00, you're mentally either done or realise how much work is pending. That's just barely 4-6 hours of work!
Abroad, people come by 8 or 9, and are brutal in their focus and time spent-- when they work, they work. Gossip is hush hush, there's no chai time and by 6pm, even 6 hours of work is good quality work.
So How do you get work done in such a desi environment —by setting crazy deadlines.
3. Lack of Boundaries
India is a fuzzy-boundary culture. Home is brought to the office and office is brought home. People discuss personal problems with colleagues. Some employees (esp women) are upfront: they're here just for a few years before getting married and leaving.
This lack of boundaries makes many youngsters distracted and unserious about their jobs. People giggle, check WhatsApp under their desks, treat work as a social club.
Life happens TO many Indians rather than being shaped BY them. Success is attributed to luck, connections, and circumstances. Failure is blamed on politics, bad timing, or others. "I am to good only then why??".
When you don't see a clear connection between your actions and outcomes, why take ownership? If promotions feel random and quality of everyone is poor and is irrelevant to your career, why prioritize quality? This helplessness is cultural—and is supported by arranged marriages, fate-based thinking, and rigid hierarchies. But it's deadly in the workplace.
4. Authority Without Accountability
The cost of saying "no" to a manager is greater than saying "yes" and not doing the work.
You can't really blame managers entirely. Ideally, we'd create environments where employees feel comfortable saying no, asking clarifying questions, and having real dialogue.
But here's what actually happens if you indiscriminately open it up and let the employees be comfortable: junior employees start talking without thinking.
Combined with poor communication skills and weak critical thinking, they voice every random thought that enters their heads. Questions like "How do I upload a YouTube video?" or "How do I find ChatGPT?" appear constantly.
Uh, Did you even try Googling it?
Combined with poor communication skills and weak critical thinking, they voice every random thought that enters their heads. Questions like "How do I upload a YouTube video?" or "How do I find ChatGPT?" appear constantly. Uh, Did you even try Googling it?
This forces managers to put up walls. Being authoritative becomes the easiest way to cut through the noise. It's a double-edged sword. I've been in this position myself—it really sucks because there's zero self-regulation from the team. Employees just have verbal diarrhoea in front of you.
Here's the problem then-- employees will say yes to assignments, won't ask meaningful follow-up questions, and will come back with a terrible first draft because they didn't proactively think or ask questions upfront.
5. The Integrity Crisis
When did this happen? A country known for its high moral compass has become a 'no integrity around words' culture!
People are compliant to your face. They say yes. But there's no follow-through. Remember: being nice is not the same as being professional. Peers think "I'll do work for you if you're nice to me".
Managers have to "trust but verify" like the Russians say, except in India, you have to keep verifying constantly. Endless follow-ups. Sitting on people's heads.
The best micromanagers are actually nice people who follow up extensively. But this leads to terrible work-life balance for them.
Many managers face a choice: shame and anger versus micromanagement, or all three. Anger and shame become shortcuts to get work done. The truly excellent managers create emotional connections with their teams—and then those teams will go the extra mile for them.
6. The Wrong People Get Rewarded
Toxic people often get the work done.
In many Indian companies, the nice managers who try to be respectful and build culture struggle to get work done. Meanwhile, the assholes who yell and bully people get stuff shipped.
And when you're running a business, you prioritize work completion over culture. You prioritize business over feelings. These toxic managers are smart—they're never assholes to senior management. They save their toxic behaviour for their reportees.
"WHY is this not done yet, huh? What do you mean it's in progress? It should have been done days ago!"
This creates a vicious cycle. Nice behavior doesn't get rewarded with results, so it doesn't get promoted. Toxic behavior delivers outcomes, so it rises to the top.
7. The NRI Wake-Up Call -- The Indian that Moves Abroad
The same Indian who needs constant supervision in Bangalore suddenly transforms when they go to the US or Europe.
I have a friend, who worked at an IT company in Pune. He needed daily check-ins from his manager. Then he moved to Seattle to work at Amazon.
Years later I asked, "How's the micromanagement there?"
He laughed. "Dude, my manager and I have a 30-minute one-on-one every two weeks. That's it. I deliver my work. Nobody's breathing down my neck."
What changed? He didn't magically become a different person overnight. The thing is, Indians HAVE to perform abroad. There's no choice.
Indians HAVE to perform abroad. There's no choice.
You're on an Visa. Your visa is tied to your job. Get fired, and you have a few days to find another job or leave the country. Your parent, (spouse or kids if you have any), your apartment lease, your entire life in this "utopia" - all of it evaporates if you don't deliver.
In India? Get fired from Infosys, join Wipro next month. Get fired from Wipro, join TCS. Get fired from TCS, go back to your hometown, live with your parents, figure it out. There's always a safety net. Family, savings, another mediocre job waiting.
Abroad, there's no safety net. No parents to fall back on. No uncle who can make a phone call. No "adjust kar lenge" culture. You deliver or you're out. And being out means packing up your entire life and going back home - defeated.
So this man, who needed daily supervision in Pune, suddenly becomes a self-starter in Seattle. Not because he's more talented. Because the consequences of failure are brutal and immediate.

What's the Way Out? - Six Concrete Solutions

How do we actually fix this mess? Here are six ways to break the micromanagement cycle:
1. Actually Train People on Prioritization
Most Indians are terrible at prioritisation because nobody ever taught us. We were trained to do what we're told, not to decide what's important.
Implement the Eisenhower Matrix in your teams: Urgent-Important, Urgent-Not Important, Not Urgent-Important, Not Urgent-Not Important. Train people to categorize their tasks using this framework.
Every Monday, each team member should list their top 3 priorities for the week. Not 10. Not 20. Three. And they should be able to clearly explain why those three matter more than everything else.
Amazon uses something called "PR/FAQ"—you write the press release announcing the project's success before you even start building. If you can't write a compelling press release, the project probably isn't worth doing. This forces crystal-clear thinking about what actually matters.
Teach people to push back: "Hey, can you also do this task?" "I'd love to, but I'm committed to X, Y, and Z this week. Which one should I drop to pick this up?" Put the prioritization conversation back on the manager.
Use tools properly—JIRA, Asana. Each task gets a priority score. Each sprint has a clear, measurable goal.
2. Build Actual Processes and Tools
Processes get a bad reputation because most people hate them. Good processes don't slow you down—they speed you up by removing confusion and ambiguity.
Stand-ups should be 15 minutes maximum. What did you do yesterday? What are you doing today? What's blocking you? That's it. If something needs deep discussion, take it offline.
Sprint planning should be bought in by all. Two weeks of work should be planned upfront. The plan doesn't change mid-sprint unless something is genuinely on fire. This eliminates the constant "Hey, can you quickly do this?" interruptions.
Use docs-- Stop calling meetings or use whatsapp for everything.
3. Give Real Freedom to Say No
This is the hardest one culturally. In India, saying no to authority is seen as disrespectful. We need to kill this mentality.
Create a culture where "no" is acceptable if it comes with clear reasoning. "Can you do this by tomorrow?" "No, because I'm committed to X, which is higher priority for the business. I can deliver this by Friday, or we can discuss reprioritization."
When someone says no with good reasoning, praise them publicly. "I love that Priya pushed back on this. That's exactly the kind of critical thinking we need on this team."
Run pre-mortems before starting projects. Ask "What could go wrong?" and let people voice concerns early when it's cheap to adjust course, not late when it's expensive.
4. Run Retrospectives
Run retrospectives after every project. All places except 1, I worked at, hated retrospectives. One guy even said "Why we need to discuss. Leave it na. We will learn as we go".
It's just simple questions help the future-- What went well? What went badly? What should we change?
People support what they help create. If decisions are made in closed rooms and then announced top-down, don't expect genuine buy-in.

Micromanagement exists because it's the path of least resistance. It's easier to hover over people than to use brains to plan ahead. It's easier to control than to trust. What kind of work culture do we want to build?
One where people need to be watched and controlled?
Or one where adults take real ownership and deliver real outcomes?
The choice is ours.