You Don’t Need to Know Everything—Just Stop Faking It

There’s a particular kind of boss that’s worse than just a micromanager. It’s the kind who micromanages badly—hovering over tasks they don’t actually understand, second-guessing decisions with no context, inserting themselves into workflows like a toddler grabbing the steering wheel from the backseat. At least a competent micromanager might know what they’re interrupting. But this flavor of leader doesn’t know the work, won’t admit it, and compensates by managing through vague questions, performative stress, and ominous calendar invites titled “Touch Base.” If you’ve never had a boss like that, congratulations on your peaceful life. The rest of us are still flinching every time someone asks if we “have a minute.”

I’ve worked under those managers, and—cards on the table—I’ve been one, too. Not in the mustache-twirling villain sense, but in the more common and less cinematic way: I got put in charge of something I didn’t totally understand, so I backed off too far because I didn’t want to come across like a dumbass. That’s the inverse version of the same mistake. Instead of meddling, I ghosted. I figured giving people space was the respectful thing to do, when what they actually needed was presence. Not command. Not control. Just the sense that I was there, paying attention, invested, and ready to help.

Running a team without understanding their work is like Game Mastering a system you’ve never read. You might be able to fake it for a session or two. Maybe you’ve got the vibe down—narrating like Matt Mercer on half-speed, throwing in enough “roll for initiative” moments to keep everyone entertained. But sooner or later, your players are going to do something mechanical. They’ll try to shove a goblin off a bridge, or cast a spell that interacts with a system you didn’t prep, or—God help you—start asking about grappling rules. And now you’re scrambling through the Player’s Handbook like it’s a cursed tome, bluffing your way through it while everyone quietly starts texting under the table. Because nothing kills trust like a GM who pretends to know things they clearly don’t.

Leadership theory has a name for this balancing act: Situational Leadership. Hersey and Blanchard laid it out in the late '60s, but the idea still hits. It says your leadership style should adapt based on how competent and confident your team is at a given task. Some people need direction. Others need support. Some just need you to get out of the way and let them work. But the only way to figure that out is to actually know where they’re at. And that requires something micromanagers and absentee leaders alike tend to skip: asking questions and listening to the answers.

Most micromanagers don’t think they’re micromanaging. They think they’re doing due diligence. Staying informed. “Driving results.” But what they’re actually doing is disrupting Self-Determination Theory—a cornerstone of motivation research that says people thrive when they feel autonomous, competent, and connected. Micromanaging undercuts autonomy. But if you also don’t know the work, it undercuts competence too—yours and theirs. You’re not just in the way; you’re actively creating friction, the same way a GM does when they override the bard’s plan just because they didn’t understand how Bardic Inspiration stacks.

And on the flip side, disappearing because you don’t understand the work doesn’t help either. That just makes people feel unsupported, especially when things start going sideways. It’s the equivalent of a GM saying, “Well, that’s what your character would do,” and then zoning out on their phone while the players roleplay around them. Sure, you’re not interrupting, but you’re also not engaged. You’ve become the leadership version of ambient tavern music.

So how do you do it better?

You get curious. You name what you don’t know. You ask your team what they need from you today, not just what they needed when the project started. You ask, “What am I doing that’s helpful?” and brace yourself for the silence that might follow. You sit with it. Then you try again.

You stop treating questions like traps and start using them like torches. You stop assuming that being “the boss” means you have to be the expert. And you realize that your credibility doesn’t come from having all the answers—it comes from helping the people who do their best work.

If you’re running a campaign and you don’t know every mechanic, that’s fine. But don’t fake it. Bring in a co-GM, hand off to someone more familiar with the system, or prep more next time. In the moment, the best thing you can do is own it. Say, “I don’t actually know how this rule works—can you walk me through it?” And suddenly, you’ve transformed from an authority figure faking competence into a leader modeling collaboration.

When you’re a leader and you don’t know the work, your job isn’t to disappear. And it’s not to overcorrect by smothering your team with bad advice. Your job is to learn just enough to be useful, to ask the right questions, and to create an environment where people feel like they can do their thing without you pretending to be the expert on everything. Because when people know you’ve got their back—not their keyboard—that’s when trust actually starts to build.

And the next time you do have to give direction, it won’t sound like interference. It’ll sound like support.

Citations:

Deci, E.L., & Ryan, R.M. (2000). The "what" and "why" of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268.

Hersey, P., & Blanchard, K.H. (1969). Life cycle theory of leadership. Training & Development Journal, 23(5), 26–34.