There are leaders who impose clear rules, demanding goals and demand firmly. This is not, necessarily, authoritarianism — it may just be rigor. But there is a type of leadership that operates in a much more subtle way., and so, much more dangerous: one who exercises constant control, disguised as care, zeal or “closeness”. This is what I usually call microauthoritarianism.
This behavior does not come with shouting or explicit orders. It settles in the details: in unnecessarily copied emails, in public corrections masquerading as “feedback”, in centralizing decisions that could — and should — be delegated. All under the logic of constant supervision. The leader does not shout, but he's always looking. And this silent presence has a devastating effect on the team's psychology..
“Fear of freedom manifests itself in the desire to be dominated.” Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm helps us understand this dynamic by analyzing the fear of freedom. According to him, There are leaders who hide behind control because they fear autonomy — not just from others, but mainly her own. They were trained to associate authority with surveillance. E, therefore, believe that if they are not in control of everything, will lose respect, the position or identity itself.
The problem is that excess control does not produce excellence — it produces conformity.. I've seen talented teams become apathetic because they're under leadership that, in the background, they didn't trust them. Professionals stopped proposing, to risk, to engage. Every decision, no matter how small it was, needed to go through an invisible approval funnel. And what was supposed to be management became suffocation.
For those working in this scenario, The first attitude is to protect yourself emotionally. When everything needs authorization, the feeling of incompetence can set in, even for no real reason. You need to remember that micromanipulation is not about you — it’s about the other person’s fear. Microauthoritarianism says more about the leader's insecurity than about his professional capacity.
One possible path is to negotiate spaces of autonomy. Start small: propose taking on parts of projects with well-defined deliverables. Build a trusting relationship based on consistent results. This will not always be enough to change the leader's behavior, but it can open small gaps of freedom.
Another possibility is to form alliances with colleagues who also feel under siege.. Informal groups that share experiences, ideas and emotional support help preserve sanity and, oftentimes, create small zones of resistance to the logic of control. These spaces, even if informal, play a vital role in keeping creativity alive in rigid environments.
Leadership is sustaining the tension between necessary control and desirable freedom. Microauthoritarianism breaks this balance, transforming work into an environment of constant surveillance. But no team flourishes when it is watched all the time — because where there is absolute control, there is no trust. And no trust, there is no true leadership.
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