There is a peculiar culture that persists in too many Jamaican workplaces — the belief that because someone occupies a higher position on the organisational chart, he or she has earned the right to diminish, intimidate, scrutinise, and control the people beneath them.

Nowhere is this more troubling than in higher education. Universities and colleges are supposed to be places where ideas are challenged, expertise is developed, independence is cultivated, and people are encouraged to think critically. Yet, behind the polished language of collegiality and academic excellence, some employees — particularly junior employees — find themselves navigating something far less intellectual: microaggressions, excessive supervision, and managers who seem to confuse leadership with surveillance.

Junior employee are often the easiest target — they are new; they are still learning the institutional culture; they may not yet understand the politics of the workplace; they may be on probation, pursuing a graduate or terminal degree, trying to secure a contract, or simply hoping to establish themselves professionally; and some managers know precisely how vulnerable that position can be.

So the little digs begin: “You’re still new here.” “That is not how we do things.” “Who told you to do that?” “You should have checked with me first.” “Don’t get ahead of yourself.” “You need to learn your place.”

Sometimes the words are not even explicit; it is the tone, the deliberate exclusion from information, the meeting invitation that never arrives, the contribution that is ignored until a senior person repeats it, the unnecessary correction of minor details, and the constant questioning of decisions that were perfectly reasonable when made by someone else.

Individually, these incidents may appear insignificant, but collectively, they can become a workplace culture. That is the danger of microaggression. It does not always arrive dramatically. Sometimes it comes dressed as “feedback,” “guidance,” “institutional culture” or “just making sure things are done properly”. But when an employee is repeatedly made to feel incompetent, insignificant, inexperienced, or perpetually inadequate, the cumulative effect should not be dismissed simply because each individual incident appears small.

And then there is micromanagement — the occupational disease of managers who cannot distinguish leadership from control. The micromanager wants to know everything: every e-mail, every meeting, every sentence, every decision, or every five-minute movement of a project.

They demand to be copied on correspondence that does not require their involvement. They rewrite emails that were already perfectly acceptable. They insist on approving routine decisions. They call meetings to discuss matters that could have been handled in two sentences. They ask for constant updates and then complain that employees are spending too much time updating them. They create bottlenecks and then blame employees for delays; they restrict autonomy and then complain that employees lack initiative; and they refuse to trust people and then wonder why nobody takes ownership. That is not leadership. That is control masquerading as leadership.

A competent manager does not need to have his or her fingerprint on every piece of work. A competent manager establishes expectations, provides resources, offers guidance, holds people accountable, and then allows competent adults to do their jobs. There are managers who genuinely want to see junior employees grow. They introduce them to colleagues, recommend them for opportunities, give constructive feedback, trust them with responsibility, and celebrate their accomplishments.

And then there are managers who seem threatened by the very possibility that someone junior might be talented. That is when mentorship becomes gatekeeping, development becomes control, feedback becomes humiliation, supervision becomes surveillance, and organisational hierarchy becomes an excuse for disrespect.

Higher education is particularly vulnerable to this because academic and administrative institutions are deeply hierarchical. Titles matter, positions matter, years of service matter, institutional knowledge matters, but none of these things gives anyone a licence to treat another adult as intellectually inferior.

The uncomfortable truth is that some workplace hierarchies survive because junior employees are expected to tolerate behaviour that more senior employees would never accept. They are told to “keep the peace”. They are encouraged to “learn the culture”. They are warned not to “make waves”. They are advised to “choose their battles”. Sometimes that advice is practical, but sometimes it is simply another way of telling the person experiencing the problem to absorb the dysfunction.

There is a difference between professionalism and submission; there is a difference between respect for authority and surrendering one’s dignity; and there is a difference between being teachable and allowing someone to systematically undermine your confidence. Employees need to understand this distinction.

Like me, when you know who you are, what you know, what you have accomplished, and what you bring to the table, you do not have to accept every table you are invited to sit at. You do not have to remain in environments in which your competence is constantly questioned for the satisfaction of someone else’s ego, you do not have to confuse being employed with being obligated to tolerate disrespect, and you certainly do not have to become smaller so that an insecure manager can feel bigger.

This does not mean that every difficult interaction constitutes microaggression or micromanagement. Managers have legitimate responsibilities. Junior employees need supervision. Mistakes must be corrected. Standards must be maintained. Accountability is necessary. Institutions cannot function without policies, procedures and appropriate oversight. But accountability is not harassment. Supervision is not surveillance. Feedback is not humiliation. Leadership is not domination.

A manager who has to control every detail of an employee’s work should perhaps ask a difficult question: Why did I hire the person in the first place? If the answer is because you believed they were capable, then let them demonstrate that capability.

A strong manager creates successors. That is leadership. The micromanager, by contrast, creates dependants. And perhaps that is why micromanagement can be so corrosive. It is not merely irritating, over time, it teaches capable employees to stop thinking, stop initiating, and stop caring. Why take initiative when every decision will be second-guessed? Why propose an idea when it will be dismissed until someone senior presents it? Why go beyond the minimum when every additional effort simply creates another opportunity for scrutiny? Eventually, the employee learns the lesson the manager has been teaching all along: Don’t think. Just wait for instructions. Then the same manager complains that the younger generation lacks initiative. The irony would be funny if it were not so damaging.

Jamaican workplaces — and our higher educational institutions in particular — need to have an honest conversation about workplace power. Respect for seniority should not become reverence for poor leadership. Institutional tradition should not become an excuse for institutional dysfunction. And “this is how things have always been done” is not a management philosophy.

Junior employees deserve something better. They deserve the opportunity to learn without being humiliated. They deserve supervision without suffocation. They deserve feedback without contempt. They deserve recognition without having to become someone else’s favourite. And they deserve managers who understand that authority is a responsibility, not a personality trait.

Oneil Madden is a lecturer of academic literacy and French. he is also a PhD candidate in didactics and linguistics (French/english) at Clermont Auvergne University, France. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or maddenoniel@yahoo.com.

Oneil Madden