Close for a Reason
Type. Watched closely, for a stated reason. Hold it to its end date.
This test describes how closely your work is supervised and whether that has a stated reason. It scores behaviours you have experienced, not a person, and it is not HR or legal advice.
Your work is watched closely, and you know why. Your Reason bar is high: someone has told you the cause of the close checking, and you know when or on what condition it stops. This test calls that Close for a Reason. It is oversight with a purpose, not micromanagement, and on this evidence the problem is not your manager.
Close oversight has three legitimate reasons. You are new in the role, something recently went wrong, or the stakes on this work are unusually high. Each one is real, and each one has an end. A new person stops being new. A miss is repaired and the next three pieces of work land. A high stakes project ships. Oversight with a reason should come with a date or a condition when it stops, and yours appears to have one.
Read your other bars now. If Room and Trust Signals are low, the checking is heavy but explained, which is tolerable for a season and tiring for a year. If Update Load is low as well, the reporting is heavier than the reason needs, and that part is open to negotiation even while the reason stands.
The risk in this reading is the end date that quietly moves. Reasons expire. New becomes experienced, the miss becomes history, the launch goes live, and the checking carries on out of habit. That is the point where close for a reason turns into one of the other readings in this test.
What to do this week. Write down the reason and the end condition as you understand them, and send them to your manager in two lines: this is what I understood, is that right? Then make the checking easy by delivering the update before it is asked for. When the end date arrives, you will have a written record to point to and a track record to go with it.
What to do with this result
If you do not manage people
Your Monday one on one. Confirm the end, not the reason: I understand why you are close to this work right now. Can we agree what needs to be true for you to step back, and check it on a date? Put the date in both calendars.
The three columns. This reading does not put you in the leave column on its own. Stay and act, if the update load is heavier than the reason needs: propose one written update a week in place of the extra checks. Stay and wait, if the reason and the end date are clear and the date is near. If the date passes and nothing changes, take the test again. The reading will show whether the reason has expired.
If you manage people
If you are close to someone's work right now, this is the reading you want them to give you: they know why, and they know when it stops. Many managers skip one of the two. Say the reason out loud, name the condition that ends it, and put the check in the diary. New in role, a recent miss and high stakes are the three good reasons. Anything else is habit.
The Foreman result in the management style quiz shows what this looks like when the reason has expired and the checking has not. The one on one meeting builder gives the checkpoint a home. The 5 Minute Leader builds the delegation habit five minutes a day.
Next step
The other results
About this result
This is one of 4 results from the Micromanaged or Managed: the micromanaging boss test, a free tool that shows the score without an email. Aggregate figures are at the statistics page once 30 completions have been reached. More free tools are at the tools shelf.