Comment by adonese

The manager I had that seemed like this at first was lying about things constantly, presenting different information to her peers, her reports and her manager. If I had the time over again I would have quit the job the very first time I thought “I should get this in writing”, even though at the time I just thought she was incompetent.

A few made up examples:

- Asking you to lie about the status of your work in a status report. (Hiding bad news)

- Deliberately misrepresenting how much something will cost. (Or did cost)

- Asking you to interview someone from a competitor purely to gain market intelligence.

- Falsely blaming another team for mistakes.

- Misrepresenting financial metrics or KPIs.

Micromanagement can be bad, though sometimes it's needed and sometimes it's a symptom of a weak manager doing what they need to in order to stay accountable. Sometimes it's a control tool for sociopaths. When the ethical boundaries are crossed, it's a symnptom of sociopathy.