phd supervisor micromanage

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Types Of Difficult PhD Supervisors And How To Successfully Deal With Them

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Supervision is a difficult task, and there is often conflict between supervisors and their PhD students. Even if you find a supervisor with whom you have excellent rapport, there can still be problems. Here are some of the types of difficult supervisor which you might encounter, and tips on how to manage them.

Micromanagers

A micromanager is one who is overly controlling and wishes to make input on all of your decisions, however small. For example, they may want to check every single slide or piece of writing which you produce, multiple times. Or they may try to dictate the way in which you divide up your time and how you prioritise. Micromanagers can be difficult to deal with, as different students and supervisors have different ideas about how much management a supervisor should perform. For some PhD students, having a lot of guidance and having their work checked regularly can be reassuring, while for others, it feels patronising. So if you find you supervisor to be too involved, remember that this is an issue of preference and not necessarily an indication that your supervisor thinks that you are not competent.

To deal with a micromanager, you'll need to take a dual approach: firstly, demonstrating that you can perform tasks competently without their guidance. If you show that you can prepare a presentation well, for example, without their influence, then they will feel less need to manage you in the future. The other approach is to talk with them and try to discover their underlying concerns. Do they feel like they need to micromanage because they are concerned about your ability to organize your time? Do they worry that your research will go over budget? Or are they trying to be supportive by giving you lots of feedback on your writing? Identify the underlying concern which is leading to the micromanaging behaviour, and try to demonstrate that their worries are not founded.

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Absentee supervisors are those who are not present during your PhD, either physically (i.e. they are away travelling a lot) or metaphorically (they are so busy that you never see them). This is a common problem with senior professors and those who supervise lots of PhD students. Without advice and guidance from a supervisor, performing your PhD research is much harder.

To deal with an absentee supervisor, you can first try laying out an agreement with them about regular meetings. If you can arrange a meeting with them once a week or once every two weeks at a set time, you'll know that you at least have the chance to get their input on any issues. Often professors can be bad at replying to emails, so a face-to-face meeting is the best way to get their attention. If you can't get regular meetings with them, you can turn to your second supervisor or other senior researchers who you trust, and ask for input from them instead. However, if it is truly not possible to see your supervisor regularly, you should consider moving to a different supervisor who can give you and your research the time and attention which you deserve.

Overly Critical

It is part of the supervisor's job to offer criticism of your work, but some supervisors take this too far. Supervisors who yell at their students, who belittle them, or who make unpleasant personal comments are not unheard of. Dealing with such a supervisor can leave students stressed, depressed, and insecure about their own abilities . Doing a PhD can certainly be an emotional experience, but if students are regularly leaving the office in tears after speaking with their supervisor, then something is very wrong.

To deal with such a supervisor, you will need to assess how severe the situation is. If you supervisor is generally well meaning but rather harsh with their feedback, you can try talking to them about your overall progress in your PhD. Some supervisors, especially if they are new to management, forget that it's important to give positive feedback as well as pointing out errors. They may in fact be very satisfied with your work, but they only mention the negative points that they see. In this case, by talking to them about your overall progress you can get a more positive picture of your work.

In severe cases, however, this may not help. If a supervisor is abusive towards you and they are having an overall negative effect on your life and your work, then you need to protect yourself by leaving their group and finding a new supervisor. Remember that a supervisor should support you and assist you, not make you feel like a failure. You can always get another supervisor, but your mental health is of the highest priority.

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Enhancing Wellness in Higher Education

Managing your relationship with your phd supervisor.

The relationship we have with our academic supervisors can make or break the experience of a PhD. So it is no surprise that supervisor relationships are often the number one issue students highlight to me when I ask them to identify their top frustrations with the PhD. There seems to be something in the nature of the supervisor-supervisee relationship that can feel inherently disempowering.

In the years that I’ve worked with PhD students, I’ve heard my fair share of horror stories ranging from unresponsive supervisors to those who micromanage their students or give insulting feedback. But I’ve also heard more promising stories about supervisors who are available, encouraging and completely supportive of their students.

While it may seem as though it’s just the luck of the draw, I wouldn’t leave everything up to chance. There are things you can do to foster a better relationship with your academic supervisor. Below I will share some top tips for enhancing the supervisor-supervisee relationship.

• OWN YOUR PROJECT

Many students approach the relationship with their supervisors through the lens of an employer/employee dynamic. In reality, your supervisor should be working for you! Even though your supervisor is more senior than you, this is your project and it is highly likely that you are more of an expert on your specific topic than they are. Supervisors are there to guide you through the process, but at the end of the day, this is your project  and it’s up to you to shape it the way that you want.

• COMMUNICATE YOUR NEEDS

Whether it’s more frequent contact, clearer feedback, or joint meetings if you have multiple supervisors, don’t hesitate to ask for what you need. While it’s not uncommon to hear students complaining about their supervisors, the truth is that your supervisor can’t read your mind and if something isn’t working well, it’s up to us to communicate what your needs are. This will first involve identifying your needs and then making a clear and direct request to your supervisor.

• SET EXPECTATIONS IN ADVANCE

Unfortunately, there is no guidebook on how supervisors and supervisees should interact. It is often down to the individuals involved to determine how this important relationship will function. As with any relationship, we have an opportunity to establish what the expectations are and set out how those expectations are going to be fulfilled. For instance, when it comes to constructing a timetable for completion, you might wish to jointly work on this with your supervisor. In setting out the timetable, you commit to specific dates for submitting individual chapters to your supervisor, while your supervisor commits to specific dates for returning their feedback to you. In this way, you set a mutually workable timetable that establishes what work needs to be done by each person and by what date.

• ADMIT WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW

If there is something you don’t understand, don’t shy away from admitting to your supervisor that you are confused or unsure about it. Pursuing research at the doctoral level will necessarily involve probing into unfamiliar territory or even a particular methodology that is brand new for you. You don’t need to have all the answers, so let go of the expectation that you should be an expert on everything that is related to your research area.

• DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY

As I mentioned in my previous post, ‘Coping With Academic Criticism’  receiving a lot of negative feedback from a supervisor can feel extremely demoralising. Remember that it’s your supervisor’s job to spot potential holes in your research so try not to take it personally. Of course, it can be challenging not to take negative feedback to heart. What I encourage students to do is to sift through the feedback and ask yourself: ‘will this feedback ultimately strengthen the project?’ If the answer is yes, it may help you to view it more constructively.

• ASK FOR CLARITY

It could be that your supervisors’ feedback or comments to you are unclear or contradictory to something else they said to you previously. Not only does this often lead students to feel stuck and uncertain about how to proceed, it can also be incredibly frustrating. Don’t hesitate to ask your supervisor for more clarity. It could be that they have overlooked their previous advice to you or that they need to explain their feedback to you more fully. However awkward it may feel to ask for clarity on something, you’ll save yourself a lot of time in the end by having this conversation.

• BROADEN YOUR NETWORK

It is not uncommon to see students becoming overly reliant on their supervisors throughout the PhD – depending on them not only for advice about their thesis, but advice more generally relating to job applications, publishing, teaching, funding opportunities and much more. While it’s great to draw on the experience and wisdom of your supervisor, it’s also important to broaden your circle of support throughout the PhD, beyond the tiny bubble of you and your supervisor. For this reason, I encourage students to make their own contacts and connections throughout the PhD, and to take advantage of opportunities to share their work with others. Expanding your connections in the field will not only enrich your research by exposing you to other viewpoints, it will also put less pressure on the relationship with your supervisor.

• REMEMBER THEIR  EXPERIENCE IS NOT YOUR  EXPERIENCE

Another reason to seek other avenues of support beyond your supervisor is because their experience is not your experience. The world may have changed a lot since they did their PhD and as a consequence, the advice they may be able to offer you about – for instance – job applications, may be quite limited. So graciously accept their advice when it is offered, but don’t treat everything they say as gospel. Talk to others and, above all, follow your own instincts.

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How to deal with a micromanaging supervisor?

I am doing my PostDoc with a reputable professor, who achieved a lot in our research area. I really learnt a lot of things from him, but the problem is that I am uncomfortable with his supervision.

He is kind of person who wants to show that they are open and accept different opinion but when we start discussing he does not accept the other opinion and very often justifies his opinion by "If I was a reviewer I would reject ....". After a few discussions with him, I just say you are right. He has also an annoying attitude; he points out what he does not like directly (which is not always from the aspect of wrong and true) and if he believes something is wrong, he shouts and says it is wrong (even if you are presenting). At work, he has opinions about everything and I should apply (not because it is his opinions but because we discussed and his opinion is always true).

When we write something together based on one line idea, of course, I write what I think is right, but he just gives the feeling that you are doing something stupid and says it does not work (it is still an idea). Overall, I am allowed neither to do mistakes, to disagree with him nor to give wrong assumptions. -I would prefer that he gives his opinion by saying I prefer this idea better and pointing out a wrong assumption by saying I don't think this works. Evaluating me (monthly for example) instead of just saying directly you are wrong (because most of the time the mistake does not affect the work). -

Since I started working with him, some colleagues just left because not agreeing with him (I don't know the details) but he told me that because they were not able to do what I asked them for. Also, during our meetings, he made so many people cry, especially girls because of his way of criticism.

We are now writing a proposal together and he asked me to write about his ideas, but he does not like that I am just doing what was assigned to me and not taking lead and drive the proposal. Actually, I don't feel that I am allowed to do thing by myself because he is pointing out everything so I just wait for his orders.

Before, I just accepted this fact and to deliver the work and accomplish his orders until I finish my PostDoc contract, but now he behaves as a micromanager and wants me to take lead. The two things don't match in my opinion.

I don't know how to deal with this situation.

• supervision

• 1 How long till your postdoc finishes? –  user68958 Commented Dec 4, 2018 at 21:30
• Less than one year. –  Capsule Commented Dec 4, 2018 at 21:31
• @Capsule Just out of curiosity, if he is not open to accept/discuss the difference of opinion then how and what did you learn from him? –  Mohaqiq Commented Dec 5, 2018 at 3:15
• He is one of the famous researchers in the field (which I think what he made him like this). I really learnt from his knowledge. Working under these conditions was also benefiting to learn how to deal with different people characters. I didn't find it professional to just leave because of this. Of course, I am not judging his person or his knowledge. I don't agree with his way of managing his team because it makes people robot and at the same time he wants his employees to take lead. I don't believe that he even knows about his difficult character. –  Capsule Commented Dec 5, 2018 at 8:51
• 2 Is he wrong in asserting If I was a reviewer I would reject .... ? This is a skill that comes with experience. Maybe he is guiding you towards a solution that a reviewer is more likely to accept? Of course, this is rather subjective. –  user2768 Commented Dec 5, 2018 at 10:33

4 Answers 4

In my opinion there is no middle ground and you have only few possible options:

You politely leave, blaming something external while thanking him for the support (just to have a slight chance to get good references).

You confront him honestly, and say what you think it is not working and that your plan was to leave as soon as the contract ended so you did not plan to lead any research projects for more than the remaining time. Probably here he will fire you, but there is still a chance he might understand and he will listen to your feedback (nothing is impossible).

You fake politeness and productivity until the end of the year while trying to do your best. This might give wrong signals to the professor, but if you really want to leave only after the end of the contract, it is one of the fewer options I can see.

Alternatively, you can try to earn his respect and have what you want in a more subtle way. At the beginning, this would include: compliments, self blaming, high work productivity and so on. I have seen people do that and also achieving their goals, however, I can see why you would rather not go towards this path.

Moreover, by better reading what you wrote (also about other people leaving the group and students crying) I can totally see this as a mobbing case. In such situations, the university should have some people you could talk to about this (I understand there are consequences). Of course, I only heard your opinion and I am assuming that you are totally honest with us.

Control freak. You can learn a lot about getting things done, but it will be high stress. If you are asking how to win with such a person, well you need to become their "star". This requires you put in long days, 7 days a week, at being the world's greatest bootlicking assistant. You decisions will have no value, your hard efforts can be discarded on a whim for an alternative approach that only differs in that he thought of it instead of you, and you may never be allowed to get full credit for any major aspect of the project.

I'd say the real danger is the recommendation you need from this person. In my experience such people write pretty bad recommendations, even for their "stars". Look into how much he has helped previous students and postdocs. If they struggle, just leave asap.

• 1 -1: previous students and postdocs may struggle or succeed for reasons not linked with their former supervisor. –  Dmitry Savostyanov Commented Dec 4, 2018 at 23:36
• @DmitrySavostyanov Of course. But in the face of uncertainty the most robust decision is to blame the professor. You have some idea on how to reach a better decision? –  A Simple Algorithm Commented Dec 5, 2018 at 0:40

It is a difficult situation but you can try the following:

I would prefer that he gives his opinion by saying I prefer this idea better and pointing out a wrong assumption by saying I don't think this works. Evaluating me (monthly for example) instead of just saying directly you are wrong (because most of the time the mistake does not affect the work). -

It is not guaranteed to work — if he's certain he's always right, he's probably certain that he's right in how he does the supervision. But it may hive him the food for thought and eventually lead him to adapt to your needs.

• Take a more leading role in collaboration. He explicitly expects you to do it. Yes, you will probably be criticised for your mistakes, but if you manage to process this feedback constructively, you will get a lot of useful knowledge and experience.

I don't feel that I am allowed to do thing by myself because he is pointing out everything so I just wait for his orders.

Don't wait for his orders. He explicitly wants you to try and fail and receive his feedback on it and try again. This is his supervision method. It's annoying but it's not the worst. Maybe, ask him also to note and appreciate good things about your proposals when he sees them.

Micromanaging requires a lot of time, effort and thought. It's not an easy or pleasant strategy. Being control freak is not fun. PI's are pushed into it often because they:

• are responsible for large and complex projects
• do not have time to do all the work personally and have to rely on postdocs
• do not receive the expected outcome from their postdocs — for various reasons postdocs may waste project time and funds and achieve nothing.

There is a delicate balance to strike between developing a postdoc as an independent researcher (i.e. allow them to take lead, try and fail), and achieving project goals (i.e. get excellent results and produce top-level publications). These two goals contradict each other, and any PI is under a pressure to deliver both. This may lead to the conflict you describe as:

he behaves as a micromanager and wants me to take lead. The two things don't match in my opinion.

Unfortunately, this is a direct consequence of modern funding system and culture of success in academia.

I disagree with another answer suggesting to "blame the professor". My advice is to try to help your professor.

• I would advise avoid justifying micromanagement. If PIs are "pushed" into it "because", they are just unable to manage a project, and they should probably consider to follow a management course. Lack of management skills is a acknowledged problem in academia. –  TakeMeToTheMoon Commented Mar 30, 2023 at 19:33
• Who said the PI is not able to manage a project? The OP says their PI is a reputable professor, who achieved a lot in our research area . Surely, such success would've been impossible to achieve in a highly competitive academic environment if the PI was clueless in how to manage a project. –  Dmitry Savostyanov Commented Mar 30, 2023 at 20:33
• I see your point. Here, as I see it, there seems to be a misunderstanding: reputation (in the academic field) is made of outputs, not of processes. Management is not just "doing whatever it takes to get your outputs at the expenses of your PhDs and postdocs' mental health since you are often untouchable as a professor". Management includes being able to manage a team, and this is often overlooked in the academia, in my opinion. –  TakeMeToTheMoon Commented Mar 31, 2023 at 10:49
• Management is also delivering on targets. In academia, outputs are recognised as targets. Happiness of the team, well-being of postdocs and graduate students - not necessarily (as long as no-one dies or takes Uni to court). So arguably the PI is a good manager, at least from the University point of view. He is achieving goals he was hired to achieve. The issue is not his management, but wrong set of goals. –  Dmitry Savostyanov Commented Mar 31, 2023 at 10:56

Question asks:

@DmitrySavostyanov's answer mentions:

Being control freak is not fun. PI's are pushed into it often because... (a list of several quite realistic reasons)

Everyone works within the constraints of their neurological & psychological strengths and weaknesses, and the skill sets the have managed to assemble so far in life.

Sometimes people are simply set to "output only" either by choice or hard wiring. In these cases "Try to explain to them that..." is probably pointless and counterproductive.

In these cases focus on your goals and what you can bear.

If you are worried about a recommendation, and you can find it within yourself, focus on agreeing with them, validating their positions and emulating their style rather than only focusing on demonstrating how good and independent-thinking you are.

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" has substantial truth to it.

If you encounter what seems like dismissiveness or reflexive criticism of your thinking, change tack and ask a probing question about their thinking with as much apparent interest as you can. This has two benefits:

• They may start thinking "Aha, this one is finally coming around and catching on, unlike all the other useful idiots that I have to manage".
• You might actually learn something useful! They are not a substantial contributor solely via micromanagement, they must have some insight. Drain as much of it as you can out of them through whatever mixture of flattery and genuine interest you can muster! Consider this the reward for the unpleasantness of it all.

And always keep your eye on the prize - which is whatever you decide it should be. Presumably it's moving on with knowledge, experience, acumen and at least a non-negative recommendation.

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• Correspondence
• Published: 11 May 2017

PhD supervisors: be better mentors

• Devang Mehta 1 &
• Konstantinos Vavitsas 2  

Nature volume  545 ,  page 158 ( 2017 ) Cite this article

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As steering-committee members of the European Association of Students and Post-docs in Synthetic Biology, we find it questionable and unhelpful to blame research students for the breakdown in communication with supervisors ( E. Diamandis Nature 544 , 129; 2017 ).

We agree that PhD students should be proactive in their investigations and in using their supervisor's expertise. First, however, they need to find their feet. They are largely naive about the highly competitive nature of science when they start in a lab, and often have no experience of project management. PhD students are not trainees or employees: they need guidance and supervision, particularly during the first two years.

PhD students today face more challenges than most professors ever did. The supervisor has mentoring responsibilities beyond academic performance, including the student's well-being. Many PhD students crack under the strain of publishing pressures and deteriorating career prospects (see go.nature.com/2pt9q6j ). Unless underpinned by appropriate support, meetings with the supervisor risk reinforcing the student's fear of failure.

European universities are tackling this problem by providing more courses and resources to train principal investigators in management and leadership. Their widespread requirement for PhD candidates to have completed a master's degree before enrolling means that students are better equipped to deal with the few islands of success in the sea of failures typical of the research environment.

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Mehta, D., Vavitsas, K. PhD supervisors: be better mentors. Nature 545 , 158 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/545158a

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The Skyline G Blog: New ideas and perspectives focused on results

• Micromanagement vs. Leading: Empowering Your Team for Enhanced Productivity

by Thuy Sindell, PhD. and Milo Sindell, MS. Published on May 20, 2024

In today’s competitive business environment, the distinction between micromanagement and empowering leadership is critical, especially for senior leaders.

The former severely constrains an organization’s dynamism and innovation, while the latter can significantly boost productivity and foster a positive, engaging workplace culture.

Below we explore the detrimental effects of micromanagement in-depth and provide strategic insights for senior leaders on fostering a culture of empowerment, which is crucial for long-term success.

What is Micromanagement?

Micromanagement is a management style characterized by a leader’s need to control every tiny detail of their team’s activities, demonstrating a fundamental lack of trust in their team member’s ability to perform tasks independently.

For senior leaders, this approach is not only counterproductive but also detracts from their primary leadership responsibilities of:

• Setting vision
• Engaging in high-level decision-making

With excessive focus on minutiae, micromanagement can consume a disproportionate amount of leaders time and energy which should be spent on more critical, strategic issues that directly impact the organization’s long-term success.

When senior leaders get caught up in the intricacies of routine tasks, they miss out on crucial opportunities for growth and development, both for themselves and their organization.

Examples of Micromanaging

In the context of senior leadership, micromanagement might manifest in various counterproductive behaviors like:

• Requiring approval for minor decisions that junior staff could easily handle, thereby bottlenecking decision-making processes.
• Insisting on receiving exhaustive reports on routine operations that should be trusted to competent managers, thereby delaying overall execution and response times.
• Concentrating excessively on the procedural elements of tasks rather than on broader outcomes and results diminishes efficiency and detracts from strategic focus.

This level of detail-oriented oversight on minor details can seriously hinder organizational momentum and degrade employee autonomy and motivation.

The Negative Effects of Micromanagement at Work

Micromanagement significantly undermines the foundation of trust & respect necessary for effective management, particularly in roles requiring foresight & strategic planning.

Senior leaders should be acutely aware of micromanagement’s broad and often destructive and negative impact on employees:

1) Reduced job satisfaction & engagement

When employees feel micromanaged, it signals a lack of trust in their capabilities, leading to reduced job satisfaction & engagement. An effective manager must ensure their direct reports feel trusted and valued.

2) Decreased productivity

Contrary to the intentions behind micromanagement, it most often results in reduced productivity. Teams focused more on compliance with stringent controls rather than achieving outcomes can experience significant delays. These inefficiencies stifle innovation and responsiveness, crucial elements for maintaining competitive advantage and meeting deadlines.

3) Undermines teams abilities

Micromanagement creates a stifling work environment, suppressing team members’ creative and innovative impulses by not allowing them the freedom to explore and execute their ideas. This diminishes their engagement & motivation as they may feel that their skills and contributions are undervalued, thereby limiting the team’s potential and the effective use of their skill set.

4) Undermines organizations agility

In today’s fast-paced business world, an organization’s ability to adapt and innovate quickly is critical to maintaining a competitive advantage. Senior leadership-level micromanagement can inhibit the organization’s agility, making it slower to respond to market changes and opportunities. Senior leaders can foster a more responsive, agile organizational culture by entrusting teams with more autonomy.

5) Undermines an organizations ability to scale

Micromanagement restricts the organization’s ability to scale and adapt because it entangles leaders in day-to-day operations that their teams could effectively manage.

6) Psychological effects on team members

The stress and constant scrutiny associated with micromanagement leads to increased anxiety among team members. This environment can decrease mental well-being and overall job satisfaction, leading to burnout, reduced productivity, and a lack of creative input—elements crucial for innovation & strategic success.

7) Decreased team morale & increased turnover

Senior leaders who micromanage clearly show that they do not trust their team’s judgment or capabilities. This lack of trust can lead to decreased team morale and increased employee turnover, as individuals may seek work environments where they feel more respected and valued. The ripple effects of this dynamic can be far-reaching, impacting team cohesion, productivity, and, ultimately, the organization’s ability to achieve its strategic goals.

8) Loss of valuable institutional knowledge

Finally, focusing on the minutia is particularly detrimental at a senior level, where high turnover rates can lead to significant disruptions in strategic initiatives and the loss of valuable institutional knowledge.

Strategies to Avoid Micromanagement

In the quest to enhance productivity and team morale, managers often grapple with balancing clear guidance and avoiding micromanagement.

While an involved manager is essential for offering direction and setting clear expectations, micromanagement can stifle creativity and diminish trust within the team.

How to Stop Micromanaging: Empowering Leadership

Effective leaders recognize the importance of stepping back, focusing on the big picture, and empowering their team members to take ownership of their tasks.

Adopting an empowering leadership style is the key to stopping micromanagement and is essential for enhancing employee well-being and achieving high organizational performance.

Empowering vs. Micromanaging

Empowering leadership involves setting clear objectives and giving team members the autonomy to determine the best methods to achieve these goals.

This approach encourages job satisfaction, fosters innovation, and builds a culture of accountability and professionalism, contrasting sharply with micromanagement’s restrictive and demotivating nature.

Avoiding the tendency to focus on small details allows leaders to create a more positive work environment.

Empowerment Techniques

To truly empower a team, senior leaders must trust and support employees in their roles. This means providing opportunities for professional growth, supporting their decisions, and encouraging them to develop solutions independently.

Clear expectations combined with autonomy can significantly reduce the need for micromanagement.

Rather than giving detailed instructions, leaders should encourage their teams to take on more responsibility and complete tasks in their own way. Promoting a fail forward attitude can also help teams learn from their experiences and improve continuously.

Self-Reflection for Senior Leaders

Senior leaders need to reflect on their management style. Signs that you might be micromanaging include:

• A reluctance to delegate significant projects or decisions, leading to an accumulation of too many tasks on your plate.
• A pattern of dissatisfaction with team outputs unless personally directed by you.
• Frequent overturning of decisions made by competent team members without substantial justification.

Recognizing and addressing these tendencies is crucial for a more empowering leadership style. Empowering team members not only enhances their performance but also fosters a sense of responsibility and engagement. An effective manager should focus on the overall outcome of an assigned project rather than micromanaging every aspect of the employee’s work.

Transitioning from Micromanagement to Empowerment

For senior leaders, moving from micromanagement to a more empowering approach involves significant adjustments in mindset and management practices.

Effective Empowerment Strategies

Set Strategic Expectations: Clearly articulate what success looks like at a strategic level, allowing teams the autonomy to navigate towards these goals within agreed parameters.

Delegate with Trust: Match important tasks with team members’ strengths, trust them to complete them, and resist the urge to intervene unnecessarily.

Promote Decision-Making Autonomy: Foster a culture where team members feel confident taking initiative and making decisions that align with the organization’s strategic goals.

Resource Allocation: Provide teams with the tools and resources to perform optimally without constant oversight.

Encourage Robust Communication: Build a feedback-rich environment where constructive criticism and ideas are encouraged, enhancing individual and organizational learning.

Personal Development for Leaders: Changing from a micromanager to an empowering leader requires ongoing self-development, actively seeking and acting on feedback, and adjusting leadership practices to better support and develop the capabilities of your team.

For senior leaders, avoiding micromanagement and embracing empowering practices can dramatically improve team productivity, morale, and overall organizational health. By fostering an environment where empowerment is the norm, senior leaders can ensure their organizations are well-equipped to meet current and future challenges, driving success in an increasingly complex and competitive business landscape.

Contact Skyline G today to learn more about our leadership coaching services that can help your leaders lead more effectively, avoiding micromanagement and instead choosing empowering leadership.

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What Makes A Good PhD Supervisor?

• By Dr Harry Hothi
• August 12, 2020

A good PhD supervisor has a track record of supervising PhD students through to completion, has a strong publication record, is active in their research field, has sufficient time to provide adequate supervision, is genuinely interested in your project, can provide mentorship and has a supportive personality.

Introduction

The indicators that you’ll have the best chance of succeeding in your PhD project are multi-factorial. You’ll need to secure funding, find a research project that you’re interested in and is within your academic area of expertise, maybe even write your own research proposal, and find a good supervisor that will help guide you through PhD life.

As you research more into life as a doctoral student, you’ll appreciate that choosing a good supervisor is one of the most important factors that can influence the success of your project, and even If you complete your PhD at all. You need to find a good supervisory relationship with someone who has a genuine research interest in your project.

This page outlines the top qualities to look for as indicators of an ideal PhD supervisor. But before we get to that, we should be clear on precisely what the supervisor is there to do, and what they are not.

The Role of a PhD Supervisor

A PhD supervisor is there to guide you as you work through PhD life and help you make informed decisions about how you shape your PhD project. The key elements of their supervisory role include:

• To help ensure that you stay on schedule and maintain constant progress of your research so that you ultimately finish your PhD within your intended time frame, typically three to four years.
• To advise and guide you based on their knowledge and expertise in your subject area.
• To help you in the decision-making process as you design, prepare and execute your study design.
• To work with you as you analyse your raw data and begin to draw conclusions about key findings that are coming out of your research.
• To provide feedback and edits where necessary on your manuscripts and elements of your thesis writing.
• To encourage and motivate you and provide ongoing support as a mentor.
• To provide support at a human level, beyond just the academic challenges.

It’s important that you know from the outset what a supervisor isn’t there to do, so that your expectations of the PhDstudent-supervisor relationship are correct. A supervisor cannot and should not create your study design or tell you how you should run your experiments or help you write your thesis. Broadly speaking, you as a PhD student will create, develop and refine content for your thesis, and your supervisor will help you improve this content by providing you with continuous constructive feedback.

There’s a balance to be found here in what makes a good PhD supervisor, ranging from one extreme of providing very little support during a research project, to becoming too involved in the running of the project to the extent that it takes away from it being an independent body of work by the graduate student themselves. Ultimately, what makes a good supervisor is someone you can build a rapport with, who helps bring out the best in you to produce a well written, significant body of research that contributes novel findings to your subject area.

Read on to learn the key qualities you should consider when looking for a good PhD supervisor.

Qualities to Look For in A Good PhD Supervisor

1. a track record of successful phd student supervision.

A quick first check to gauge how good a prospective supervisor is is to find out how many students they’ve successfully supervised in the past; i.e. how many students have earned their PhD under their supervision. Ideally, you’d want to go one step further and find out:

• How many students they’ve supervised in total previously and of those, what percentage have gone onto gain their PhDs; however, this level of detail may not always be easy to find online. Most often though, a conversation with a potential supervisor and even their current or previous students should help you get an idea of this.
• What were the project titles and specifically the areas of research that they supervised on? Are these similar to your intended project or are they significantly different from the type of work performed in the academic’s lab in the past? Of the current students in the lab, are there any projects that could complement yours
• Did any of the previous PhD students publish the work of their doctoral research in peer-reviewed journals and present at conferences? It’s a great sign if they have, and in particular, if they’re named first authors in some or all of these publications.

This isn’t to say that a potential supervisor without a track record of PhD supervision is necessarily a bad fit, especially if the supervisor is relatively new to the position and is still establishing their research group. It is, however, reassuring if you know they have supervision experience in supporting students to successful PhD completion.

2. Is an Expert in their Field of Research

As a PhD candidate, you will want your supervisor to have a high level of research expertise within the field that your own research topic sits in. This expertise will be essential if they are to help guide you through your research and keep you on track to what is most novel and impactful to your research area.

Your supervisor doesn’t necessarily need to have all the answers to questions that arise in your specific PhD project, but should know enough to be able to have useful conversations about your research. It will be your responsibility to discover the answers to problems as they arise, and you should even expect to complete your PhD with a higher level of expertise about your project than your supervisor.

The best way to determine if your supervisor has the expertise to supervise you properly is to look at their publication track record. The things you need to look for are:

• How often do they publish papers in peer-reviewed journals, and are they still actively involved in new papers coming out in the research field?
• What type of journals have they published in? For example, are most papers in comparatively low impact factor journals, or do they have at least some in the ‘big’ journals within your field?
• How many citations do they have from their research? This can be a good indicator of the value that other researchgroups place on these publications; having 50 papers published that have been cited only 10 times may (but not always) suggest that this research is not directly relevant to the subject area or focus from other groups.
• How many co-authors has your potential supervisor published with? Many authors from different institutions is a good indicator of a vast collaborative professional network that could be useful to you.

There’re no hard metrics here as to how many papers or citations an individual needs to be considered an expert, and these numbers can vary considerably between different disciplines. Instead, it’s better to get a sense of where your potential supervisor’s track record sits in comparison to other researchers in the same field; remember that it would be unfair to directly compare the output of a new university lecturer with a well-established professor who has naturally led more research projects.

Equally, this exercise is a good way for you to better understand how interested your supervisor will be in your research; if you find that much of their research output is directly related to your PhD study, then it’s logical that your supervisor has a real interest here. While the opposite is not necessarily true, it’s understandable from a human perspective that a supervisor may be less interested in a project that doesn’t help to further their own research work, especially if they’re already very busy.

Two excellent resources to look up publications are Google Scholar and ResearchGate .

3. Has Enough Time to Provide Good PhD Supervision

This seems like an obvious point, but it’s worth emphasising: how smoothly your PhD goes and ultimately how successful it is, will largely be influenced by how much time your research supervisor has to provide guidance, constructive academic advice and mentorship. The fact that your supervisor is the world’s leading expert in your field becomes a moot point if they don’t have time to meet you.

A good PhD supervisor will take the time to meet with you regularly in person (ideally) or remotely and be reachable and responsive to questions as and when they arise (e.g. through email or video calling). As a student, you want to have a research environment where you know you can drop by your supervisors’ office for a quick chat, or that you’ll see them around the university regularly; chance encounters and corridor discussions are sometimes the most impactful when working through problems.

Unsurprisingly, however, most academics who are well-known experts in their field are also usually some of the busiest too. It’s common for established academic supervisors to have several commitments competing for their time. These can include teaching and supervising undergraduate students, masters students and post-docs, travelling to collaborator meetings or invited talks, managing the growth of their academic department or graduate school, sitting on advisory boards and writing grants for funding applications. Beware of the other obligations they may have and how this could impact your work relationship.

You’ll need to find a balance here to find a PhD supervisor who has the academic knowledge to support you, but also the time to do so; talking to their current and past students will help you get a sense of this. It’s also reassuring to know that your supervisor has a permanent position within your university and has no plans for a sabbatical during your time as a PhD researcher.

4. Is a Good Mentor with a Supportive Personality

A PhD project is an exercise in independently producing a substantial body of research work; the primary role of your supervisor should be to provide mentoring to help you achieve this. You want to have a supervisor with the necessary academic knowledge, but it is just as important to have a supportive supervisor who is actively willing and able to provide you constructive criticism on your work in a consistent manner. You’ll likely get a sense of their personality during your first few meetings with them when discussing your research proposal; if you feel there’s a disconnect between you as a PhD student and your potential supervisor at this stage, it’s better to decide on other options with different supervisors.

A good supervisor will help direct you towards the best outcomes in your PhD research when you reach crossroads. They will work with you to develop a structure for your thesis and encourage you to set deadlines to work to and push you to achieve these. A good mentor should be able to recognise when you need more support in a specific area, be it a technical academic hurdle or simply some guidance in developing efficient work patterns and routines, and have the communication skills to help you recognise and overcome them.

A good supervisor should share the same mindset as you about finishing your PhD within a reasonable time frame; in the UK this would be within three to four years as a full-time university student. Their encouragement should reflect this and (gently) push you to set and reach mini-milestones throughout your project to ensure you stay on track with progress. This is a great example of when a supportive personality and positive attitude is essential for you both to maintain a good professional relationship throughout a PhD. The ideal supervisor will bring out the best in you without becoming prescriptive in their guidance, allowing you the freedom to develop your own working style.

Finding a PhD has never been this easy – search for a PhD by keyword, location or academic area of interest.

To sum up, the qualities you should look for in a good PhD supervisor are that they have a strong understanding of your research field, demonstrated by regular and impactful publications, have a proven track record of PhD supervision, have the time to support you, and will do so by providing mentorship rather than being a ‘boss’.

As a final point, if you’re considering a research career after you finish your PhD journey, get a sense of if there may any research opportunities to continue as a postdoc with the supervisor if you so wanted.

In this post you’ll learn what the significance of the study means, why it’s important, where and how to write one in your paper or thesis with an example.

PhD stress is real. Learn how to combat it with these 5 tips.

Is it really possible to do a PhD while working? The answer is ‘yes’, but it comes with several ‘buts’. Read our post to find out if it’s for you.

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Dr Morrow gained his MD-PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Michigan. He now splits his time between providing clinical care to patients through the University of Michigan and research relevant to addiction and several other psychiatric disorders.

Dr Patel gained his PhD in 2011 from Aston University, researching risk factors & systemic biomarkers for Type II diabetes & cardiovascular disease. He is currently a business director at a large global pharmaceutical.

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4 signs your boss is a micromanager and how to challenge them.

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While micromanagers may have good intentions, their management tactics infect the workplace culture ... [+] and productivity of the team.

A common misconception about micromanagers is that they’re condescending, bad-tempered and inherently nasty individuals. The truth is, most micromanagers have the best intentions for their team but have developed poor habits resulting in micromanaging tactics. As such, they perpetuate the cycle of micromanaging as they’re demonstrating this is the way to lead others. Likewise, employees are not set up for success because they’re disempowered to make decisions on their own. Therefore, an employee’s leadership skills are limited because they’ll always rely on their manager.

For this reason, micromanagers are detrimental to the success of a business and the mental health of everyone involved. LinkedIn reported that 79% of employees have been micromanaged at least once in their career. Oxana Razumova, co-founder of Sensemakers , explained, “micromanagement is not just an unpleasant trait of a manager, it’s a strictly controlling management style, in which the boss doesn’t leave independence to employees.” As a result, employees disengage, feel demoralized and their creativity is stifled. Consequently, this prevents the team from flourishing.

Moreover, it increases stress, destroys happiness and decreases productivity and drives burnout. Thus leading to unhealthy habits such as poor eating, increased drinking, irritability, lack of sleep and long-term health issues.

Here are four signs your boss is a micromanager and how you can challenge them.

They’re Obsessed With Knowing Everything

Managers often have a hard time delegating responsibilities and trusting in their team to complete tasks. This is because they believe they can do the task better or that nobody else will work as hard as them. Rather than provide clear expectations and trust that employees will do what’s expected of them, micromanagers require constant updates even on small tasks, want access to everything and check-in multiple times asking for the same information that was already provided.

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Clinging onto every piece of information not only holds the manager and team back from being successful, but it pushes quality people away. Managers can say they trust their employees, but if their actions contradict their words, employees will quickly lose trust and become disconnected.

Instead of focusing on high-level, strategic tasks, managers often end up overwhelmed with low-priority activities. This narrow focus prevents them from being available to their team. Furthermore, this micromanaging tactic of needing to know everything sends the message that the employee isn’t trusted to get the job done. An example of this is requiring employees to keep a detailed record of how every minute is spent through spreadsheets, calendar time blocking or a shared document.

Sam Lowy, CEO of Life Insurance Star , shared, “this younger generation of employees prefers working independently with enough autonomy to make decisions on their own. It shows a level of trust that motivates them to do better.” Without trust, employees feel powerless and question their position at the company. As a consequence, they disengage, grow resentful and lose loyalty to the company.

Employees can mitigate this by requesting a weekly check-in where they share updates, challenges and get the support they need. In addition, they can propose a shared spreadsheet that’s updated in real-time. Employees can set a boundary using phrases such as, “I don’t think this is the best use of your time” or “in order for me to be the most productive...”

Their Ego Makes Them Fearful Of Losing Control

Micromanagers are the biggest bottleneck to a team's success due to requiring excessive meetings, gatekeeping and stifling creativity, agility and innovation. Additionally, expectations aren’t shared, demands are made without context, little support or advice is offered and there’s unnecessary stress. As such, employees are unsure of whether they should act before receiving a task or assert their independence to start working. Furthermore, they may delegate tasks to their team but end up redoing the finished work to do it the way they want it done.

Employees become disengaged when they know they’re not trusted to do their job well. Rather than giving employees ownership to make decisions themselves, micromanagers require that each decision first be approved by them. Keesjan Engelen, CEO of Titoma , said, “this desire to achieve perfection through other people’s performance, the lack of confidence in your own team, and the ability to let your team work independently shows a lack of emotional intelligence.”

The most innovative companies are the ones who give their employees the autonomy to take risks and challenge the status quo. Rolf Bax, chief human resources officer at Resume.io , shared “when a manager resorts to micromanaging out of fear, what often ends up happening is they alienate the people who are crucial to their success.”

Tyler Parris, Hudson-certified executive coach and founder of Chief of Staff , provides a few ways for employees to challenge their micromanager:

• I heard you say Mike was going to own this project, but then I noticed you drove the entire conversation in that meeting, is that what you intended?
• I noticed you've asked the team for a status multiple times a day this week, but we have a dashboard that shows the status in real-time. May I ask what's going on for you there? Are you worried about something specific?
• I'm wondering if all those requests are taking the team out of their flow or focused time to do their work?

They Believe They Know Better Than Everyone Else

Many managers operate from the mindset that they know best and they’re smarter than everyone else. Leo Young, founder and editor of Optimized Family said, “this influence can be fatal to the creativity, innovation and performance” of the workplace.” When employees lack the autonomy and space to develop their expertise, learn from their mistakes to improve processes and grow, they start shutting down because they don’t feel like their contributions are valued.

Knowledge sharing is designed to be a collaborative method not a one-way approach. Each person has different knowledge, experience, opinions, perspectives and ideas. Thus, every individual on a team has something valuable to contribute. The worst thing a manager can do is neglect what their team brings to the table and speak to them as if they’re inexperienced. An example of this is constantly reminding employees of your experience in the industry or position when they try to share their ideas or opinions. Another example is always needing to have the last word. This creates a fear-based environment where employees refrain from speaking up. Accordingly, innovation disappears.

To challenge this, employees should create more awareness around how their manager’s behaviors and words impact them. This starts by having an open and respectful conversation with their manager. Using an “I feel” statement with specific examples, such as “I feel like you don’t trust me when you X”, is a great starting point. Also, if a micromanager focuses on criticizing what’s done wrong without acknowledging strengths and achievements, let them know how you prefer feedback delivered and what type of employee-manager relationship you want.

It’s important to note that some micromanagers lack the emotional intelligence and self awareness to change their ways. If it’s clear that they’re not going to change even after expressing your needs and going to human resources, it’s time to consider if this something you can handle for the long-term.

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Micromanagement in clinical supervision: a scoping review

1 Department of Dental Education & Dental Research Institute, School of Dentistry, Seoul National University, 101 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, 03080 South Korea

2 Dental Research Institute, School of Dentistry, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

Marcus A. Henning

3 Centre for Medical and Health Sciences Education, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

J. M. Monica van de Ridder

4 College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University, Michigan, USA

Vijay Rajput

5 Department of Medical Education, Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Allopathic Medicine, Nova Southeastern University, Florida, USA

Associated Data

Related data of this study can be available upon request to the corresponding author.

Micromanagement in clinical supervision in health professions education generally refers to supervision characterized by unproductive excessive control and attention to detail. It can affect autonomy, competence, well-being of learners, teamwork, and ultimately patient care. Despite its potential negative impact on learners and patients, no comprehensive review of this phenomenon has been conducted. This scoping review aims to explore the breadth of extant literature concerning micromanagement in clinical supervision in health professions education and map the body of research on the topic. We followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis: Extension for Scoping Review (PRISMA-ScR). We searched eight databases, and the final review and analysis comprised 12 articles that examined micromanagement in clinical supervision across health professions education. Micromanagement was conceptualized as ineffective supervisory practices such as undue scrutiny, excessive control, domination, and ineffectual leadership. Conversely, alternatives to micromanagement included entrusting or granting autonomy, coaching for independent practice, and providing effective supervision and leadership. Overall, micromanagement was attributed to individual behavioral and personality factors, such as distrust, perfectionism, self-conviction, and low self-esteem. The consequences of micromanagement included inadequacies in professional development and well-being of trainees and patient care, and organizational dysfunction. Suggested solutions included entrusting or empowering trainees with encouragement and clear communication, open communication efforts by trainees, organizational management for quality supervision, and faculty’s valuing both clinical and educational goals. Current literature on micromanagement—in the context of clinical supervision in health professions education—was found to be sparse, implying a need for more rigorous research and discourse on this understudied area. The findings can be used to recognize, solve, and prevent the prevalent, and often unrecognized, phenomena of micromanagement, which may improve clinical supervision, the professional development of trainees and faculty, organizational management, and ultimately patient care.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-023-04543-3.

Introduction

High-quality clinical supervision is vital to the development of competent medical practitioners, and excellent patient care. Though non-existent or limited supervisory input may affect trainee learning and patient safety [ 1 ], the negative impacts of excessive supervision, or micromanagement, may also reduce the benefits of clinical supervision [ 2 , 3 ]. Most academic healthcare organizations require clinical supervision, reflecting the belief that careful guidance can help trainees develop into independent professional decision makers and competent clinicians. At the same time, there is little empirical validation or theoretical foundation underlying such supervisory practices [ 4 ].

A few studies have shed light on some of the components of high-quality clinical supervision in health professions education (HPE). Busari and colleagues [ 5 ] reported on trainees’ views of “good” and “poor” supervision. Overall, trainees felt that effective (good) supervisors provided clear explanations of their clinical opinions, gave them autonomy to enhance their experience and competence, and allowed them to engage in self-directed learning. Conversely, less skillful (poor) supervisors showed deficiencies in coaching, including ineffective communication and micromanagement that undermined trainees’ autonomy and compromised their learning and, accordingly, patient safety (e.g., van de Ridder et al. [ 6 ]). Interestingly, studies suggest that too much supervision or micromanagement is more common than not enough supervision in medical education practices [ 1 , 5 ].

Micromanagement can be referred to as an inappropriate method employing excessive clinical supervision. Micromanagement engenders the management of personnel using excessive control or attention to detail. Exerting an excessive level of control denotes that it goes beyond a generally accepted level of input and often culminates in negative consequences. Studies report that micromanagement can have negative influences on medical training and patient care as it creates an unsafe learning environment, harms the learners in their learning, and depletes confidence in future independent clinical practice [ 2 , 3 ]. In general, micromanagers may appear to be well intended, and in fact, are seldom aware that their behavior has negative effects on a trainee’s motivation, autonomy, competence, well-being, team-work, and patient care. Among the three functions of clinical supervision that Proctor’s model represents — managerial, educational and supportive— [ 7 ], the focus of micromanagement is perceived to be excessively monitoring performance, rather than providing education and support. However, recent studies have reported that micromanagement, resulting in improper intensive supervision, did not improve patient safety and outcome [ 8 , 9 ].

Though all levels of learners (students, interns, residents, and fellows) see micromanagement as problematic [ 6 ], the phenomenon has received little attention in HPE. The concept and practice have gone largely unattended, and related issues, such as validly defining micromanagement within clinical care, understanding why it happens and what it brings about, examining consequences, and proposing solutions for the problem, have not been fully explored. Even in the business literature, only a few strategies are proposed for overcoming micromanagement [ 3 , 10 – 12 ].

Establishing a theoretical basis for effective clinical supervision in medical settings would go a long way toward preventing the micromanagement of trainees. This scoping review aims to explore the breadth of the available micromanagement literature with reference to clinical supervision across HPE. This work aims to contribute to refining practices related to educating independent competent physicians and enhancing quality patient care.

We conducted this study using the scoping review method to provide an overview of research available on micromanagement in clinical supervision. We followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis: Extension for Scoping Review (PRISMA-ScR) [ 13 ]. We chose to conduct a scoping review rather than a systematic review because of the differences in their goals and methods. While a systematic review focuses clearly defines research questions by synthesizing evidences from best available empirical studies, a scoping review broadly addresses defined research questions by exploring breadth instead of depth of the available studies and identifying gaps within the research topic [ 14 ]. Thus, a scoping review was more appropriate for our purposes since it would provide a map or a snapshot of the body of research on micromanagement in HPE. Further, our preliminary exploration showed that terms, concepts, and research designs used in relevant articles were diverse and inconsistent, making it difficult to aggregate or weigh evidence. Thus, we saw this scoping review as potentially informing future systematic reviews by providing an overview of the scope of current research and descriptive summaries, and identifying research gaps.

Search strategy

With the help of two qualified librarians, we searched eight databases judged to be the most relevant to our topic (Web of Science, Scopus, ScienceDirect, Pubmed, PsycINFO, Embase, CINAHL and ERIC). In addition, we conducted a hand search at Google Scholar in order to cover the breadth of the healthcare professions education literature. We performed all database searches on February 22, 2021 using search terms in the title, abstract, or keyword of articles according to the PCC (Population, Concept, Context) framework [ 13 ]: (a) health professions (Population); (b) micromanagement (Concept) and (c) education (Context). Full search algorithms for each database can be found in Additional file 1 . Because no date range was set, all related published literature was included in the search.

Selection of sources of evidence

All authors independently assessed the title and abstract screenings and reviewed the full-texts of all papers against the eligibility criteria. Discrepancies were resolved through consensus-driven meetings focused on determining the suitability of the articles for final review. The inclusion and exclusion criteria are presented in Table ​ Table1 1 .

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Data extraction and synthesis

We extracted two types of data: study features and findings. We extracted the study features of independent articles by year of publication, country where the study was conducted, health professions discipline (medical, dental, or nursing), journal/section, workplace relationships, research method, and sample size.

We extracted the findings of the articles following a four-step procedure [ 15 ]. First, we produced short summaries of each study. Second, we identified key items in the summaries, and developed a standard category template consisting of conceptualization, potential counter-balancing concepts, reasons, consequences, and possible solutions for micromanagement based on our scoping review aims. Third, we analyzed and sorted the items in each category of our template, resulting in groups of main and sub-themes. For consequences and solutions, we adopted the theoretical framework for clinical supervision developed by Rothwell et al. [ 16 ]: professional development, organizational development, and patient services. Finally, we collated the charted information, and synthesized the template into a graphical chart in order to unearth the true characteristics of all reviewed articles. We jointly and iteratively refined the interim and final outputs of the data extraction until we arrived at consensus.

We identified a total of 272 articles from the 8 academic databases and an additional hand search, and then eliminated 109 duplicate articles. We screened 163 potentially relevant articles by title review, resulting in 74 articles being eliminated based on their titles, with 89 potentially relevant articles remaining for abstract review. After we reviewed these 89 abstracts thoroughly, we excluded 42 articles. We retrieved the remaining 47 articles for full-text review, after which we excluded 35 more with consensus. Details of the exclusion process along with reasons for exclusion are presented in Fig. ​ Fig.1 1 .

PRISMA flow diagram for a scoping review of micromanagement in clinical supervision

Features of reviewed articles

The final analysis consisted of 12 articles with seven distinguishing features: (1) publication year, (2) country of the first author’s institution, (3) health profession discipline (4) journal name and section, (5) workplace relationship, (6) research method, and (7) sample size, as shown in Table ​ Table2 2 .

Features of reviewed studies

Publication year: Although we did not limit the publication year in the search stage, all the final articles were published between 2009 and 2020, except for one article published in 1998. This result shows the degree to which academic interest in the area has recently emerged. Country of the first author’s institution: For the vast majority of articles ( n  = 11, 91.7%), the educational institution of the first author was located in the United States [ 6 , 17 – 26 ], with one in Australia [ 2 ]. Health profession discipline: Over half of the articles (58.3%, n  = 7) concerned medicine [ 6 , 18 – 21 , 24 , 26 ], 25% ( n  = 3) were related to nursing [ 2 , 17 , 22 ], and 16.7% ( n  = 2) referred to dentistry [ 23 , 25 ]. Journal: The 12 publications were published in 12 different journals, 4 (33.3%) were published in HPE-related journals [ 6 , 18 , 19 , 21 ], 3 (25%) were published in medical or dental association journals [ 23 – 25 ], and 4 articles were published in non-HPE journals. Research method/Journal section/Sample size: Four of the 12 publications (33.3%) were original research [ 2 , 19 , 21 , 26 ], which consists of two qualitative methods, one mixed method; and one narrative literature review. Two articles conducted focus group interviews [ 19 , 26 ], one with 59 physicians [ 19 ], and one with two faculty members and two residents [ 26 ]. Another study used both individual interviews and surveys with 46 trainees and 44 attending physicians [ 21 ], while another incorporated a narrative review of 26 papers on micromanagement among mental health nurses [ 2 ]. Other articles were anecdotal commentaries with varied section titles [ 6 , 17 , 18 , 20 , 22 – 25 ]: Commentary (20), Opinion [ 24 ], To the Editor [ 6 ], On leadership [ 22 ], Clinical teacher’s toolbox [ 18 ], and Leadership Q & A (Questions and Answers) [ 17 ]. Workplace relationship: The majority (58.3%, n  = 7) of the key workplace relationships were medical faculty and trainee/residents [ 6 , 18 – 21 , 24 , 26 ]. Other relationships were between manager nurse and trainee nurse 25% ( n  = 3) [ 2 , 17 , 22 ]; and dentist and trainee dental team 16.7% ( n  = 2) [ 23 , 25 ].

Synthesis of findings of reviewed articles

We identified five categories from the articles we reviewed: (1) conceptualization of micromanagement, (2) counter-balancing concepts of micromanagement, (3) reasons/influencing factors, (4) consequences, and (5) possible solutions. We sorted each consequence and solution in terms of professional development, organizational development, and patient services, according to the framework for clinical supervision developed by Rothwell and colleagues [ 16 ]. Table ​ Table3 3 delineates five categories, main themes and their sub-themes, and provides representative phrases and their sources. Figure ​ Figure2 2 illustrates the interconnections between main themes.

Summary diagrams on reasons/affecting factors, consequences, and possible solutions of micromanagement

Summary of reviewed studies

Conceptualization of micromanagement

The articles contained concepts associated with micromanagement in clinical supervision. The most common were excessive control (feeling the need to exert control tightly over trainees) [ 2 , 6 , 18 , 22 , 26 ] and scrutinizing (paying attention to and monitoring every last detail) [ 2 , 6 , 18 , 22 – 24 ], followed by domination or oppression (being autocratic, forcing conformism, and not allowing trainees to make autonomous decisions) [ 18 , 20 – 23 ]. In one article, micromanagement was conceptualized as ineffectual leadership (trainees learn from the established hierarchy, not from a “teacher”) [ 20 ]. Other articles discussed potential counter-balancing concepts of micromanagement; the most common being autonomy or entrustment (entrusting trainees to care for patients with appropriate level of supervision and autonomy) [ 2 , 6 , 18 – 22 , 24 , 26 ], followed by educational mindset (mentoring, coaching, or scaffolding so that trainees progress toward independent practice) [ 6 , 18 – 20 , 24 , 26 ]. Contrary to ineffectual leadership, effective supervision [ 18 , 19 , 24 ] and leadership [ 2 , 19 , 20 , 22 ] were presented as concepts opposite from micromanagement.

Reasons/influencing factors in micromanagement

The articles we reviewed proposed a variety of reasons or factors influencing micromanagement in clinical supervision. We classified these as: faculty, trainee, or environmental factors.

Within the category of faculty factors we identified three sub-factors: (1) behavioral and personality factors [distrust [ 2 , 6 , 17 , 18 , 23 , 26 ], perfectionism [ 2 , 6 , 22 , 23 , 26 ], self-conviction [ 17 , 22 , 26 ] and low self-esteem [ 22 , 26 ]; (2) leadership and management factors [“backseat driving” [ 19 ], failing to yield [ 19 ], and lack of leadership experience and training [ 2 , 17 , 22 , 23 ], and (3) unbalanced sense of responsibility (putting more weight on the faculty’s role in patient care while relatively disregarding the role of clinical education) [ 26 ]. Trainee factors included: (1) lack of competency or efficiency [ 26 ]; (2) apparent lack of confidence [ 26 ]; and (3) lack of autonomous behavior [ 26 ]. There were two environmental sub-factors: (1) patient care contextual factors and (2) organizational culture factors. Patient care contextual factors concerned volume/severity/complexity of patient care [ 21 , 25 , 26 ], nursing capability [ 26 ], and system protocols that require faculty presence or higher precision [ 25 , 26 ]. Organizational culture factors that perpetuate micromanagement (high performance culture, close supervision, and tight regulations) [ 2 , 24 , 26 ].

Consequences of micromanagement

We delineated and classified the variety of consequences of micromanagement into four groups, including the consequences for: (1) professional development of trainee; (2) patient service; (3) organizational development; and (4) faculty (supervisor).

The consequences for trainees’ professional development were: (1) negative influence on learning environment (trainee loss of educational development and self-confidence, loss of enthusiasm and creativity) [ 6 , 21 , 24 ] and (2) a negative influence on trainee wellbeing (trainee fatigue or burnout and increased resentment, threats to psychological and physical health) [ 6 , 21 , 24 ].

Consequences for patient service referred to threats to the safety and quality of patient care [ 22 , 23 ]. Micromanagement may result in less effective training for learners, thus influencing the effectiveness of patient care and undermining practice capacity. From the organizational development perspective, consequences for organizations were (1) organizational dysfunction [ 6 , 22 , 23 , 26 ] due to high staff turnover, decreased job satisfaction, absenteeism or stifled enthusiasm, and (2) a culture of abuse [ 6 , 22 , 23 ] that demoralizes trainees, harms relationships within a team, and debilitates team unity. Finally, as a consequence for faculty, damaged personal reputation was highlighted [ 2 ].

Suggested solutions

Overall, the studies reported solutions for micromanagement in terms of faculty perspective, trainee perspective, and organizational development perspective. The solutions tended to correspond to the reasons/influencing factors for micromanagement. From a professional development perspective of supervisors, self-awareness [ 2 , 22 , 23 , 25 ] of tendencies toward and triggers of micromanagement were solutions suggested in multiple articles. Other steps similarly relied on introspection and self-assessment, such as of the ability to work through others effectively and their own triggers for micromanagement. Other recommendations involved supervisors understanding the differences between support and micromanagement and knowing when to rectify incongruence, and planning for gradual improvement. Entrustment and empowerment [ 19 , 21 – 23 , 25 ] referred to actions that would promote trainees’ independent thinking and acting, perhaps by trying to take a back-stage approach to clinical oversight. Clear communication about trainees’ roles and responsibility, and faculty’s expectations [ 2 , 19 ], were also perceived as essential, as well as training in leadership and supervisory strategies Training [ 21 , 24 ]. From the perspective of trainees’ professional development, both clinical training to improve competence and efficiency, and trainee training to seek effective supervision together with a recognition of their liabilities as clinical caregivers were recommended [ 21 ], along with open communication with faculty [ 2 , 17 , 20 ] in order to identify concerns and meet their own expectations of and that of their supervisor.

Suggestions linked to changes in the environment focused on enhancing organizational management through such actions as reducing the performance pressure or the provision of support systems that would enable quality supervision [ 2 , 19 , 24 ]. Balancing clinical and educational goals also was mentioned [ 19 ], as well as organizational training, mentoring, coaching, and autonomy building [ 6 , 18 ].

In short, the most frequently addressed concept in relevant studies of micromanagement was scrutinizing ( n  = 6, 50.0%) [ 2 , 6 , 18 , 22 – 24 ]. In contrast, autonomy or entrustment ( n  = 9, 75.0%) [ 2 , 6 , 18 – 22 , 24 , 26 ] were the most frequently mentioned contrasting concepts. The most mentioned reasons for the perpetuation of micromanagement were faculty’s behavioral and personality dimensions ( n  = 7, 58.3%), among which distrust was the number one reason ( n  = 6, 50%) [ 2 , 6 , 17 , 18 , 23 , 26 ]. In terms of consequences, the most common concern was organizational dysfunction ( n  = 4, 33.3%), with the foremost solution focusing on changes in supervisory leadership and management strategies geared toward entrusting and empowering trainees (n = 5, 41.7%).

This scoping review explored the literature pertaining to micromanagement in clinical supervision in health professions education. The key messages are: (1) Micromanagement in clinical supervision was conceptualized as scrutinizing, excessive control, domination and ineffectual leadership; (2) it is attributed to faculty members’ behavioral and personality factors foremost; (3) the consequence of such micromanagement likely impacts trainees’ professional development and well-being, patient care, and organizational dysfunction; (4) micromanagement can be mitigated by solutions such as faculty’s entrusting or empowering trainees with clear encouraging communication, open communication efforts from trainees, organization management for quality supervision, and valuing both clinical and educational goals; and (5) more research, based on a higher quality of evidence, is needed to understand and discuss micromanagement in clinical supervision. These five key messages will be discussed in turn.

Our scoping review suggests that in the field of HPE, micromanagement in clinical supervision has negative connotations, as evidenced by associated features like scrutinizing, excessive control, domination, and ineffectual leadership. Conversely, alternatives to micromanagement were essentially positive, including entrustment or granting autonomy, coaching for trainees’ independent practice, and effective supervision and leadership. Nonetheless, supervisory practices associated with micromanagement mostly engender negative perceptions and, as such, the field of medicine seems more tolerant of this approach to clinical training than fields outside medicine, such as organizational management, public administration, and political science [ 27 ]. In the field of organizational management, Peter Drucker’s 1946 work on democracy in management (decentralizing and delegating more authority to employees) and Douglas McGregor’s 1960 Theory X manager (a manager who is poor at proper delegating), criticize micromanagement as a strong disrupter of organizational life and an organizational pathology [ 28 ]. However, in the health professions, the perception of micromanagement is still controversial due to the criticality of patient safety although it was reported that micromanagement does not improve patient safety and outcomes [ 8 , 9 ].

Given the greater tolerance for supervisory micromanagement in medical fields [ 27 ], it is reasonable to ask, what exactly is the problem with scrutinizing, i.e., monitoring every last detail or a detail-oriented faculty? Some aspects of performance by health professionals are crucially important— such as those linked to patient safety, performance and professional expertise—and may be seen as justifying ‘over-management’. In fact, among physicians there has been an implicit understanding that detail-oriented, enhanced supervision is both good and necessary [ 29 , 30 ]. Practices that promote trainees’ autonomy and empowerment stand in contrast to these perceptions, consistent with our finding that the solutions to micromanagement most commonly mentioned in the reviewed articles were supervision entrustment and trainee empowerment. For clinical supervisors, it is sometimes difficult to know when a trainee is ready for unsupervised independent patient care, especially when the evidence is inconclusive, and the opinions of the supervisor and trainee differ [ 31 ]. In such cases, the Entrustable Professional Activity (EPA) can help in making such decisions [ 32 ]. EPAs are units of practice that medical trainees have to master and that supervisors must trust them to perform adequately before they complete their training. The EPA lists professional tasks and proficiencies at five levels: having limited knowledge, acting under close supervision, acting under supervision on call, acting independently, and supervising others [ 32 ]. In terms of when clinical supervisors who micromanage will feel comfortable granting autonomy to a trainee, the use of the EPA-based assessment may be a reasonable solution.

Our review revealed that in the vast majority of studies, micromanagement was associated with individual supervisor factors, particularly behavioral and personality factors, when compared with trainee and environmental factors. Factors such as acute clinical context or lack of trainee clinical competency also were seen as influencing micromanagement behavior, but to a much lesser degree. This suggests that supervisor perceptions of trainee ineffectiveness should not justify micromanaging trainees, but rather highlight the need for scaffolding that equips the trainee to reach a prescribed level of competence. This finding is inconsistent, however, with that of Sterkenburg et al. [ 31 ], who investigated factors affecting supervisor entrustment of trainees. They found that entrustment was most influenced by trainee factors, followed by faculty and contextual factors. This perceptual and hierarchical discrepancy to micromanagement may be due to different interpretations of clinical supervision. Some supervisors believe the purpose of clinical supervision is to facilitate the delivery of services to patients and monitor trainee performance, which is termed as managerial supervision [ 33 ]. Others see supervision as a vehicle for supporting the professional development of trainees [ 16 ]. Having a mutually agreed purpose of clinical supervision may be one of the keys for reducing ambiguity.

The reviewed literature revealed a number of adverse consequences of micromanagement in clinical supervision, including trainees’ educational loss and threats to their psychological and physical health, threats to the safety, efficiency and capacity for patient care, and organizational dysfunction. Importantly, in articles where trainees were quoted, they stressed a sense of helplessness [ 26 ]. One of the most frequently mentioned consequences of micromanagement was organizational dysfunction, including high staff turnover, decreased job satisfaction, absenteeism, and the diminished enthusiasm of team members—all bringing about threats to the safety, efficiency, and capacity of patient care. Some articles suggested that micromanagement can temporarily increase productivity [ 34 ]. This connection between micromanagement and organizational dysfunction is important, since in most cases organizational dysfunction is linked to a long-term downturn in productivity.

Overall, solutions to micromanagement in clinical supervision centered on the capacity of supervisors to entrust or empower trainees through encouragement and clear communication. More specifically, such solutions involved concrete efforts by supervisors to facilitate open communication with trainees, and organizational management that aims to both support quality supervision and balance clinical and educational goals. Other recommendations included leadership training for supervisors and measures that ensured supervisors promote trainees’ clinical and communication competencies. Among these multiple solutions, supervisor entrustment and empowerment of trainees were most commonly mentioned (41.7%, n  = 5).

Given our finding that in most studies, micromanagement was attributed to individual supervisor factors, it is no surprise that an important solution involves training and development initiatives for faculty. Promoting self-awareness is a logical starting point for gradual improvement in entrusting or empowering trainees. In addition, supervisors need to know about the demonstrated positive benefits of good clinical supervision, such as trainees’ reduced stress and anxiety, increased resilience, and job satisfaction. Upskilling and increased quality of care also result from effective supervision, which is best provided in an open, supportive, trusted environment that facilitates discussion and reflection on clinical practice [ 16 ]. It is also noteworthy that the organizational role can be facilitative when managing the adverse culture of micromanagement to ensure that patient care and educational goals are equally valued and emphasized. One method can optimize collaboration between an educational supervisor (who concerns educational development) and a clinical supervisor (who concerns clinical practice) to reduce the tension between the two important values [ 16 ].

This scoping review has several limitations: the sample of relevant articles we identified from academic databases is fairly small, although we searched eight databases. The sample size suggests that micromanagement in clinical supervision is an emerging research area, and points to the appropriateness of a scoping review as a starting point for more rigorous empirically-based research in coming years, such as a systematic reviews, in-depth qualitative analysis, empirical investigations, and cohort studies. From further empirical research, researchers and practitioners can gain a more precise picture of micromanagement in clinical supervision. Although our analysis was inevitably limited to publications written in English, it was noted that USA cases were overwhelmingly included, which resulted in a lack of an international perspective in our study. Future research efforts could incorporate a more inclusive international viewpoint. Additionally, research on supervision in the field of psychology and mental health (e.g. [ 35 , 36 ].), a field adjacent to health professions could further enrich our understanding and provide additional valuable insights into the dynamics of micromanagement. In addition, the conceptual features of reviewed articles could be evaluated through future research using the consultation exercise of scoping review methodology in order to identify current issues facing key practicing stakeholders [ 15 ]. With the advent of a more enhanced evidence-based foundation, more precise and effective processes for managing and ameliorating the effects of micromanagement could be implemented.

In current literature on micromanagement in clinical supervision, researchers have conceptualized micromanagement, and discussed its reasons/influencing factors, consequences, and solutions. The ineffective and effective supervisory practices associated with micromanagement that we identified in this study have implications for clinical supervisors in health profession educational settings. Such knowledge, as well as insights about alternative supervisory practices, reasons/influencing factors, consequences, and suggested solutions, can be used to recognize, solve, and prevent the prevalent, and often unrecognized, manifestation of micromanagement. In addition, by including the perspectives from supervisors, trainees, organizations, and patients, the findings can be used by health professions educators to develop various approaches to training, learning, and healthcare that best represent the needs of all stakeholders. We hope this review offers a useful springboard for more targeted empirical work and academic discourse around this topic, which could improve the quality of clinical education and patient care.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank librarian Youngmi Lee at Medical Library Seoul National University & Julie Sarpy at Health Professions Division Library Nova Southeastern University for their help with systematic search for this study.

Authors' contributions

Jihyun Lee: research design, data analysis, result interpretation, writing Solmoe Ahn: data collection, data analysis, drafting Marcus A. Henning: research design, result interpretation, writing J.M.Monica van de Ridder: research design, drafting, result interpretationVijay Rajput: research design, result interpretation, writing.

This study was funded by the Ministry of Education (NRF-2020S1A5A8041947) & the Ministry of Science & ICT (NRF-2021R1F1A1056465) of the Republic of Korea, the National Research Foundation of Korea and in part by Dental Research Institute of Seoul National University.

Availability of data and materials

Declarations.

Not applicable (No ethical approval was needed, as the study did not involve human participants).

Not applicable.

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Let It Go: Teaching a Micromanager How to Chill

Constant checking in, dissatisfaction with work products can reflect insecurity

You can keep a calendar as well as anyone. So why is it that three weeks before a deadline, the boss e-mails to remind you of it, does the same thing the next week, and then again the week after?

Suffocating bosses—also known as micromanagers—often send this message to subordinates: “I don’t trust you to get the job done, nor to do it right.”

“The micromanager is down in the weeds, swamped in minutiae,” said Teresa A. Daniel, dean of the Human Resource Leadership (HRL) Program at Sullivan University in Louisville, Ky., and chairwoman for the HRL concentration in the university’s Ph.D. in management program. “Contrary to the best social science research—which shows that people who believe that they are being watched perform at a lower level—micromanagers require incessant updates and daily huddles, and they closely scrutinize, and often criticize, how their employees complete tasks.”

• Constantly checks on where workers are.
• Asks to be copied on all team e-mails.
• Is reluctant to delegate.
• Breaks projects into small tasks that make employees feel that their contributions are insignificant.
• Checks and double-checks on deadlines and asks for frequent updates, even about small tasks.
• Rarely asks for input from others.
• Applies the same level of intensity and scrutiny to every task, failing to prioritize.
• Is never quite satisfied with a work product.
• Takes great pride in correcting or changing people’s work.
• Is subject to extreme mood swings.

What Makes a Micromanager Behave This Way?

Often, micromanagers have good intentions and don’t behave out of malice, said Rob Bogosian, founder and principal consultant of Naples, Fla.-based RVB Associates Inc., an executive leadership consultancy, and co-author of Breaking Corporate Silence (BCS Publishing, 2014). Instead, their smothering management style typically reflects an extreme need for control and a need to dominate. 

“They tend to see the world as a place that needs lots of structure to avoid chaos,” Bogosian said. “When the boss takes the solution to the finish line, their adrenal system dumps feel-good chemicals into the body. The micromanager scores the winning solution and is rewarded physiologically, so why stop? They are most likely addicted to control. Of course, the micromanager is unlikely to admit their addiction. We are likely to hear [from the boss] about the inadequacies of other employees.”

Hyacinth Guy, vice president of human resources at Caribbean Airlines Ltd., based in Piarco, Trinidad, sees it differently. Micromanagers, she said, tend to have deep-seated insecurities.

“A micromanager is a person who probably has a poor self-image, so he or she doesn’t believe they deserve to be where they are, and so thinks the same about the people they supervise,” she said. “So the constant checking and looking over employees’ shoulders are really checks on their own ability to do the job. They don’t believe in themselves, so they believe in no one else.”

How the Micromanager Affects Others

Employees who work for micromanagers often feel that their boss doesn’t trust them or value their contributions. This can cause workers to feel disrespected, devalued and demoralized. 

“Employees want some level of autonomy,” Guy said. “If I’m hired to do a job, I want to know that you have the confidence that I would do that job. If you are constantly fact-checking me, I feel hapless in the organization. That reduces my productivity.”

The manager’s mood swings can convince subordinates to avoid interacting with him or her. Daniel calls this a “climate of fear.”

Over time, employees’ professional growth is stunted because the micromanager won’t give them opportunities to shine, she said.

Ultimately, micromanaging “squashes the spirit and motivation of even the most talented and driven employee,” said Daniel, author of Stop Bullying at Work: Strategies and Tools for HR, Legal, & Risk Management Professionals 2nd Edition (Society for Human Resource Management, 2016). This, she said, “can quickly lead to burnout or, worse, talented employees electing to simply leave the organization.”

Moreover, the micromanager may eventually sabotage his or her own career or managerial reputation.

Handling the Micromanager

Changing micromanagers, Guy said, often begins when they are shocked into realizing that their management style is offensive.

Guy tells of how she dealt with one supervisor who would remind subordinates each day of what they had to accomplish. The woman tracked the time they took for bathroom breaks and would sometimes stand over workers as they completed reports.

The manager told Guy she did these things because employees are inclined to slack off if they aren’t monitored.

“Clearly, that is her worldview of people, perhaps based on how she was socialized and conditioned,” Guy said.

Guy had employees conduct an anonymous evaluation of the woman. When she earned a 2 rating from her subordinates—out of a possible 5—she was appalled.

She “had to be shocked into the realization that she was not an effective supervisor,” Guy said. “I sent her on some supervisory training. I assigned her a coach who worked to raise her awareness of how she was viewed and who helped with delegating, time management and increasing [her] productivity by focusing on high-payoff activities. Then I placed supervision as a factor in her overall [performance] assessment. She is still a work in progress but going in the right direction.”

Bogosian said such coaching requires great patience.

“The belief systems that create the micromanager may not go away overnight,” he said. “Weaning the micromanager off their controlling belief system takes time and constant feedback. More importantly, the micromanager must know that they’re safe when they allow others to succeed. It doesn’t diminish their value but actually enhances it.”

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Micromanagers Supervisor

Hello, I am getting difficulties dealing with my supervisor, I feel I am in a loop never finish. Every week we discuss something or analysis, then I do it, then my supervisor always comments: is "useless", "is boring", "you have to change your mindset", "let's see if you deserve it". This loop never finish for getting something done and then need to redo it forever.

I would like to ask if that us normal and for any suggestion how to deal with that, I feel start to get anxiety from that!

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Sverdlovsk Oblast

Natural resources

Early history, medieval history and russian expansion, rise of the mining-metallurgical era, soviet ural, post-soviet transition, administrative divisions, demographics, settlements, ethnic groups, chairmen of the oblast duma, chairmen of the house of representatives of the legislative assembly, economy and transportation, sister relationships, notable people, external links.

Most of the oblast is spread over the eastern slopes of the Middle and North Urals and the Western Siberian Plain . Only in the southwest does the oblast stretch onto the western slopes of the Ural Mountains .

The highest mountains all rise in the North Urals, Konzhakovsky Kamen at 1,569 metres (5,148   ft) and Denezhkin Kamen at 1,492 metres (4,895   ft) . The Middle Urals is mostly hilly country with no discernible peaks; the mean elevation is closer to 300 to 500 metres (980 to 1,640   ft) above sea level. [9] Principal rivers include the Tavda , the Tura , the Chusovaya , and the Ufa , the latter two being tributaries of the Kama .

Sverdlovsk Oblast borders with, clockwise from the west, Perm Krai , the Komi Republic , Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug , Tyumen Oblast , Kurgan , and Chelyabinsk Oblasts , and the Republic of Bashkortostan .

The area is traversed by the northeasterly line of equal latitude and longitude.

Rich in natural resources, the oblast is especially famous for metals ( iron , copper , gold , platinum ), minerals ( asbestos , gemstones , talcum ), marble and coal . It is mostly here that the bulk of Russian industry was concentrated in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The area has continental climate patterns, with long cold winters (average temperatures reaching −15   °C (5   °F) to −25   °C (−13   °F) on the Western Siberian Plain) and short warm summers. Only in the southeast of the oblast do temperatures reach +30   °C (86   °F) in July.

• You can help expand this section with text translated from the corresponding article in Russian . (November 2020) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Russian article.

The territory of the region has been inhabited since ancient times. Numerous sites of ancient people were discovered, dating from the Paleolithic to the Iron Age. The Upper Paleolithic includes the Garinsky site on the right bank of the Sosva river near the village of Gari , the site in the Shaitansky grotto, and the site in the Bezymyanny cave (X millennium BC). [10] [11] In 1890, the 11 thousand years old (Mesolithic) Shigir idol was discovered. [12]

A settlement and a burial ground in the Kalmatsky Brod tract are located on the right bank of the Iset river and date back to the Sarmatian time (from the 3rd century BC to the 2nd century AD). They belong to the Kalmak archaeological culture. In the Kalmatsky Brod burial ground, the skeletal skulls were strongly deformed by tight bandaging in early childhood, which indicates the penetration of steppe ethnic elements to the north. [13]

There are numerous pictograms on the Koptelovsky stone, on the Oblique stone, on the Two-eyed stone, Starichnaya, Serginskaya, the rock paintings of the Bronze Age on the Neyva River, Tagil River (villages Brekhovaya, Gaevaya, Komelskaya), rock carvings on Shaitan-Kamen on the right bank of the Rezh river tied to indigenous Ural population, possibly speakers of a Ugric language . [14] [15] The Gostkovskaya Pisanitsa refers to the Middle Ages. [12]

Before the first Russian colonists arrived to the region, it was populated by various Turkic and Ugrian tribes. By the 16th century, when the Middle Urals were under influence of various Tatar khanates, the strongest local state was the Vogul Pelym principality with its center in Pelym .

The Russian conquest of the Khanate of Kazan in the 1550s paved the way further east, which was now free from Tatar depredations (see Yermak Timofeyevich ). The first surviving Russian settlements in the area date back to the late 16th   – early 17th centuries ( Verkhoturye , 1598; Turinsk , 1600; Irbit , 1633; Alapayevsk , 1639). At that time, those small trading posts were governed under Siberian administration in Tobolsk . After the 1708 administrative reform, Verkhoturye, Pelym and Turinsk became a part of the new Siberian Governorate , in 1737 their territories were assigned to the Kazan Governorate .

During the 18th century, rich resources of iron and coal made Ural an industrial heartland of Russia. After getting control over Ural mines, the Demidov family put the region in the forefront of Russian industrialization. Yekaterinburg , Nevyansk and Tagil ironworks, founded in the 1700s to 1720s, soon joined the ranks of the major producers in Europe. Throughout the 18th and 19th century those newly founded factory towns enjoyed a status of special mining-metallurgical districts allowed to have a certain rate of financial and proprietary autonomy. During the 1781 reform middle Ural finally got its own regional administration in the form of the Perm Governorate .

When in 1812 the Russian government legalized gold digging for its citizens, Middle Ural became a center of gold mining. Entrepreneurs of the Perm Governorate also started the gold rush in West Siberia, soon Yekaterinburgers began to dominate the Russian market of precious metals and gemstones.

After the emancipation reform of 1861 , major Middle Uralian industries that were heavily dependent on serf labor entered decline, although it also allowed light industry to thrive. In 1878, Perm and Yekaterinburg were connected with a railroad, in 1888, railroads reached Tyumen , and ultimately, in 1897, Yekaterinburg joined the Trans-Siberian network . Emergence of railroad transportation helped to revitalize economy of Ural.

The Bolsheviks established their power in Yekaterinburg and Perm during the first days of the October Revolution of 1917. In early 1918 the dethroned Czar Nicholas II and his family were transferred under custody to Yekaterinburg. Local Bolsheviks decided autonomously to execute the royal family on July 17, 1918, to prevent its rescue of by the approaching White Army forces. Ten days later Yekaterinburg was captured by the Czechoslovak troops of Sergei Wojciechowski . For the next year the Anti-bolshevik forces took control over the region. On 19 August 1918, Provisional Government of Ural was formed in Yekaterinburg by a coalition of liberal and democratic socialist parties, it was supposed to serve as a buffer between the Komuch and Provisional Siberian governments. After the Kolchak coup d'état in Omsk in November 1918, the Government of Ural was disbanded.

In July 1919, in the course of the Yekaterinburg offense, Yekaterinburg and the surrounding areas were recaptured by the Red Army forces under command of Vasily Shorin . On the July 15th, the Perm Governorate was split by the Soviets and the east, for the first time in history, became a separate region, the Yekaterinburg Governorate. It was soon abolished and replaced by the Ural Oblast (1923-1934).

In the 1930s many industrial enterprises were established and built with the help of forced labour. [16] Local industry received another impetus during World War II, when important producing facilities were relocated here from the European part of Russia to safeguard them from the advancing Germans (for example, IMZ-Ural , Kamensk-Uralsky Metallurgical Works ). In the postwar period much of the region was off-limits to foreigners. It was over Sverdlovsk that the American U-2 spy plane pilot Gary Powers was shot down on May 1, 1960, while on a reconnaissance mission.

In 1979, there was an anthrax outbreak caused by an accident in a facility to develop biological weapons.

In 1993, Governor Eduard Rossel responded to perceived economic inequality by attempting to create a " Ural Republic ." Sverdlovsk led the "Urals Five" ( Kurgan Oblast , Orenburg Oblast , Perm Krai , Chelyabinsk Oblast and Sverdlovsk) in a call for greater regional power. They argued that the oblasts deserved as much power as the ethnic homeland republics . The Urals Republic Constitution went into effect on October 27, 1993. Then Russian President Boris Yeltsin dissolved the Urals Republic and the Sverdlovsk Parliament 10 days later (on November 9).

Population : 4,268,998   ( 2021 Census ) ; [5] 4,297,747   ( 2010 Russian census ) ; [17] 4,486,214   ( 2002 Census ) ; [18] 4,716,768   ( 1989 Soviet census ) . [19]

Vital statistics for 2022: [20] [21]

• Births: 39,958 (9.4 per 1,000)
• Deaths: 59,316 (13.9 per 1,000)

Total fertility rate (2022): [22] 1.56 children per woman

Life expectancy (2021): [23] Total — 68.79 years (male   — 63.72, female   — 73.80)

There were twenty-one recognized ethnic groups of more than two thousand persons each in the oblast. Residents identified themselves as belonging to a total of 148 different ethnic groups, including: [17]

• 3,684,843 Russians (90.6%);
• 143,803 Tatars (3.5%);
• 35,563 Ukrainians (0.9%);
• 31,183 Bashkirs (0.8%);
• 23,801 Mari (0.6%);
• 14,914 Germans (0.4%);
• 14,215 Azerbaijanis (0.3%);
• 13,789 Udmurts (0.3%);
• 11,670 Belarusians (0.3%);
• 11,510 Chuvash (0.26%);
• 11,501 Armenians (0.3%);
• 11,138 Tajiks (0.3%);
• 9,702 Mordovians (0.22%);
• 9,358 Uzbeks (0.2%);

232,978 people were registered from administrative databases, and could not declare an ethnicity. It is estimated that the proportion of ethnicities in this group is the same as that of the declared group. [24]

Christianity is the largest religion in Sverdlovsk Oblast. According to a 2012 survey [25] 43% of the population of Sverdlovsk Oblast adheres to the Russian Orthodox Church , 5% are nondenominational Christians (excluding Protestant churches), 3% are Muslims , 2% are Orthodox Christian believers without belonging to any Church or are members of other Orthodox churches , 1% are adherents of the Slavic native faith (Rodnovery), and 0.3% are adherents of forms of Hinduism ( Vedism , Krishnaism or Tantrism ). In addition, 36% of the population declares to be "spiritual but not religious", and 9.7% is atheist . [25]

The most important institutions of higher education include Ural Federal University , Ural State Medical University , Ural State University of Economics , Ural State Law University , Ural State Mining University and Ural State Academy of Architecture and Arts , all located in the capital Yekaterinburg.

The oblast's Charter, adopted on 17 December 1994, with subsequent amendments, establishes the oblast government. The Governor is the chief executive, who appoints the Government, consisting of ministries and departments. The Chairman of the Government, commonly referred to as the Prime Minister, is appointed with the consent of the lower house of the legislature , a process similar to the appointment of the federal Prime Minister . But the Governor cannot nominate the same candidate more than twice, yet he/she can dismiss the house after three failed attempts to appoint the Premier. [ needs update ]

The Legislative Assembly is the regional parliament of Sverdlovsk Oblast. Until 2011, it was a bicameral legislature consisting of the Oblast Duma, the lower house , and the House of Representatives, the upper house . [27] Before the reform, members of the legislature served four-year terms with half of the Duma re-elected every two years. The Duma (28   members) was elected in party lists. The 21   members of the House of Representatives were elected in single-seat districts in a first-past-the-post system. The Legislative Assembly was the first bicameral legislature outside an autonomous republic, and the first regional legislature in Russia to elect members based on both party lists and single-seat districts . As of 2021, the Legislative Assembly is a unicameral legislature with a total of 50 seats, with half of the members elected by single-mandate constituencies and the other half elected in party lists for five-year terms. [28] [29]

Compliance with the Charter is enforced by the Charter Court. The existence of such regional courts in Russia, formed and functioning outside the federal judiciary, although challenged, has been upheld and persisted successfully in most constituent members of the Federation where they were established.

Until President Putin 's reforms of 2004, the Governor was elected by direct vote for terms of four years. Eduard Rossel has been the only elected governor (first elected governor for an oblast in Russia) since 1995 (appointed in 1991 and dismissed in 1993 by President Yeltsin ), re-elected in 1999 and 2003.

Since 2012, the oblast's Governor is Yevgeny Kuyvashev .

In the 1990s, the Oblast's population was distinguished by relatively high support for parties and candidates of the right and democratic persuasion. In the 1996 presidential election, Boris Yeltsin , a native of the region who lived in Sverdlovsk until the 1980s, won over 70% of the vote. In the regional elections in 2010 in the Sverdlovsk Oblast, United Russia received minimal support relative to other regions - only 39.79% of votes. [30]

Even though it could do with modernizing, the region's industries are quite diverse. 12% of Russia's iron and steel industry is still concentrated in Sverdlovsk oblast. Iron and copper are mined and processed here, the logging industry and wood-processing are important, too.

The largest companies in the region include Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company , UralVagonZavod , Enel Russia , Nizhniy Tagil Iron and Steel Works , Federal Freight . [31]

Yekaterinburg is a prominent road, rail and air hub in the Ural region. As the economic slump subsided, several European airlines started or resumed flights to the city. These include Lufthansa , British Airways , CSA , Turkish Airlines , Austrian Airlines and Finnair . Malév Hungarian Airlines used to be among those carriers but they had to drop their flights to SVX ( IATA airport code for Sverdlovsk) after a few months.

The Alapaevsk narrow-gauge railway serves the communities around Alapayevsk .

• Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu province , Vietnam
• Harbin , China
• Vladik Dzhabarov , Russian cyclist
• Andrey Fedyaev , Russian cosmonaut
• Yakov Sverdlov , a communist revolutionary after whom Sverdlovsk and subsequently Sverdlovsk Oblast were named.
• Church of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary , a building of regional historical significance in Staropyshminsk village.

Related Research Articles

Chelyabinsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia in the Ural Mountains region, on the border of Europe and Asia. Its administrative center is the city of Chelyabinsk.

Irbit is a town in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, located 203 kilometers (126 mi) from Yekaterinburg by train or 250 kilometers (160 mi) by car, on the right bank of the Nitsa. Population: 37,009 (2021 Census) ; 38,357 (2010 Russian census) ; 43,318 (2002 Census) ; 51,708 (1989 Soviet census) .

Alapayevsk is a town in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Neyva and Alapaikha rivers. Population: 38,192 (2010 Russian census) ; 44,263 ; 50,060 ; 49,000 (1968).

Kushva is a town in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, located in the Ural Mountains near Yekaterinburg. Population: 30,167 (2010 Russian census) ; 35,555 (2002 Census) ; 43,096 (1989 Soviet census) .

Nizhniye Sergi is a town and the administrative center of Nizhneserginsky District in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, located on a rolling plain surrounded by the Ural Mountains, on the Serga River 120 kilometers (75 mi) from Yekaterinburg, the administrative center of the oblast. Population: 10,336 (2010 Russian census) ; 12,567 (2002 Census) ; 14,938 (1989 Soviet census) .

Verkhnyaya Pyshma is a town in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, located 1 kilometer (0.62 mi) north of Yekaterinburg. Population: 59,749 (2010 Russian census) ; 58,016 (2002 Census) ; 53,102 (1989 Soviet census) .

Novouralsk is a closed town in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, located on the eastern side of the Ural Mountains, about 70 kilometers (43 mi) north of Yekaterinburg, the administrative center of the oblast. Population: 85,522 (2010 Russian census) ; 95,414 (2002 Census) .

Krasnoufimsk is a town in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, located on the Ufa River, 224 kilometers (139 mi) from Yekaterinburg. Population: 39,765 (2010 Russian census) ; 43,595 (2002 Census) ; 45,618 (1989 Soviet census) .

Revda is a town in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia. Population: 61,875 (2010 Russian census) ; 62,667 (2002 Census) ; 65,757 (1989 Soviet census) .

Sredneuralsk is a town under the administrative jurisdiction of the Town of Verkhnyaya Pyshma in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, located on the shore of Iset Lake, at the head of the Iset River, 25 kilometers (16 mi) north of Yekaterinburg. Population: 20,449 (2010 Russian census) ; 19,555 ; 18,786 (1989 Soviet census) .

Kachkanar is a town in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, located between the Isa and Vyya Rivers in the Tura River's basin, 205 kilometers (127 mi) north of Yekaterinburg, the administrative center of the oblast. Population: 41,426 (2010 Russian census) ; 44,664 (2002 Census) ; 48,251 (1989 Soviet census) . The town of Kachkanar is located at the foot of mountain Kachkanar.

Ivdel is a town in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, located on the Ivdel River near its confluence with the Lozva River, 535 kilometers (332 mi) north of Yekaterinburg, the administrative center of the oblast. Population: 17,775 (2010 Russian census) ; 19,324 (2002 Census) ; 19,014 (1989 Soviet census) .

Severouralsk is a town in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, located on the Vagran River at its confluence with the Kolonga River, 512 kilometers (318 mi) north of Yekaterinburg, the administrative center of the oblast. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 29,263.

Pelym is an urban locality under the administrative jurisdiction of the Town of Ivdel in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia. Population: 3,376 (2010 Russian census) ; 3,708 (2002 Census) .

Sukhoy Log is a town and the administrative center of Sukholozhsky District in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, located on the eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains on the Pyshma River, 114 kilometers (71 mi) east of Yekaterinburg, the administrative center of the oblast. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 34,554.

Gornozavodsky District is an administrative district (raion) of Perm Krai, Russia; one of the thirty-three in the krai. Municipally, it is incorporated as Gornozavodsky Municipal District . It is located on the western slopes of the Ural Mountains in the east of the krai. The area of the district is 7,057 square kilometers (2,725 sq mi). Its administrative center is the town of Gornozavodsk. Population: 26,044 (2010 Russian census) ; 30,172 (2002 Census) ; 38,004 (1989 Soviet census) . The population of Gornozavodsk accounts for 46.3% of the district's total population.

Garinsky District is an administrative district (raion), one of the thirty in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia. As a municipal division, it is incorporated as Garinsky Urban Okrug . The area of the district is 16,770 square kilometers (6,470 sq mi). Its administrative center is the urban locality of Gari. Population: 4,904 ; 7,832 (2002 Census) ; 9,381 (1989 Soviet census) . The population of Gari accounts for 50.4% of the district's total population. The main point of historical interest is the former town of Pelym, which was one of the first Russian settlements east of the Urals, marking the eastern terminus of the Cherdyn Road from Europe to Siberia.

Turinsky District is an administrative district (raion), one of the thirty in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia. As a municipal division, it is incorporated as Turinsky Urban Okrug . Its administrative center is the town of Turinsk. Population: 28,274 ; 32,540 (2002 Census) ; 40,749 (1989 Soviet census) . The population of Turinsk accounts for 63.4% of the district's total population.

Isetsky District is an administrative district (raion), one of the twenty-two in Tyumen Oblast, Russia. As a municipal division, it is incorporated as Isetsky Municipal District . It is located in the west of the oblast. The area of the district is 2,751 square kilometers (1,062 sq mi). Its administrative center is the rural locality of Isetskoye. Population: 26,061 ; 26,565 (2002 Census) ; 25,862 (1989 Soviet census) . The population of Isetskoye accounts for 28.7% of the district's total population.

Bisert is an urban locality in Nizhneserginsky District of Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia. Population: 10,233 (2010 Russian census) ; 11,262 (2002 Census) ; 12,646 (1989 Soviet census) .

• ↑ Президент Российской Федерации.   Указ   №849   от   13 мая 2000 г. «О полномочном представителе Президента Российской Федерации в федеральном округе». Вступил в силу   13 мая 2000 г. Опубликован: "Собрание законодательства РФ", No.   20, ст. 2112, 15 мая 2000 г. (President of the Russian Federation.   Decree   # 849   of   May 13, 2000 On the Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in a Federal District . Effective as of   May 13, 2000.).
• ↑ Госстандарт Российской Федерации.   №ОК 024-95   27 декабря 1995 г. «Общероссийский классификатор экономических регионов. 2.   Экономические районы», в ред. Изменения №5/2001 ОКЭР. ( Gosstandart of the Russian Federation.   # OK 024-95   December 27, 1995 Russian Classification of Economic Regions. 2.   Economic Regions , as amended by the Amendment   # 5/2001 OKER. ).
• ↑ Official website of the Governor of Sverdlovsk Oblast. Alexander Sergeyevich Misharin (in Russian)
• 1 2 3 Russian Federal State Statistics Service. Всероссийская перепись населения 2020 года. Том 1 [ 2020 All-Russian Population Census, vol. 1 ] (XLS) (in Russian). Federal State Statistics Service .
• ↑ "26. Численность постоянного населения Российской Федерации по муниципальным образованиям на 1 января 2018 года" . Federal State Statistics Service . Retrieved 23 January 2019 .
• ↑ "Об исчислении времени" . Официальный интернет-портал правовой информации (in Russian). 3 June 2011 . Retrieved 19 January 2019 .
• ↑ Official throughout the Russian Federation according to Article   68.1 of the Constitution of Russia .
• ↑ "Russia: Impact of Climate Change to 2030" (PDF) . Retrieved 25 April 2023 .
• ↑ Сериков Ю. Б. Новые находки раннего палеолита в Среднем Зауралье // Ранний палеолит Евразии: новые открытия // Материалы Международной конференции, Краснодар – Темрюк, 1–6 сентября 2008 г.
• ↑ Сериков Ю. Б. Следы раннего палеолита на территории Среднего Зауралья // Вестник археологии, антропологии и этнографии, 2015 № 4 (31)
• 1 2 Объекты культурного наследия Свердловской области (список)
• ↑ Сальников К. В. Древнейшие памятники истории Урала , 1952.
• ↑ Khimiya i Zhizn , 9, 1974, p. 80
• ↑ Писаницы Урала (in Russian). Ural.ru . Retrieved 26 December 2010 .
• ↑ V.A. Kravchenko: I chose freedom (1946)
• 1 2 Russian Federal State Statistics Service (2011). Всероссийская перепись населения 2010 года. Том   1 [ 2010 All-Russian Population Census, vol.   1 ] . Всероссийская перепись населения 2010   года [2010 All-Russia Population Census] (in Russian). Federal State Statistics Service .
• ↑ Federal State Statistics Service (21 May 2004). Численность населения России, субъектов Российской Федерации в составе федеральных округов, районов, городских поселений, сельских населённых пунктов   – районных центров и сельских населённых пунктов с населением 3   тысячи и более человек [ Population of Russia, Its Federal Districts, Federal Subjects, Districts, Urban Localities, Rural Localities—Administrative Centers, and Rural Localities with Population of Over 3,000 ] (XLS) . Всероссийская перепись населения 2002   года [All-Russia Population Census of 2002] (in Russian).
• ↑ Всесоюзная перепись населения 1989   г. Численность наличного населения союзных и автономных республик, автономных областей и округов, краёв, областей, районов, городских поселений и сёл-райцентров [ All Union Population Census of 1989: Present Population of Union and Autonomous Republics, Autonomous Oblasts and Okrugs, Krais, Oblasts, Districts, Urban Settlements, and Villages Serving as District Administrative Centers ] . Всесоюзная перепись населения 1989   года [All-Union Population Census of 1989] (in Russian). Институт демографии Национального исследовательского университета: Высшая школа экономики [Institute of Demography at the National Research University: Higher School of Economics]. 1989 – via Demoscope Weekly .
• ↑ "Information on the number of registered births, deaths, marriages and divorces for January to December 2022" . ROSSTAT . Archived from the original on 2 March 2023 . Retrieved 21 February 2023 .
• ↑ "Birth rate, mortality rate, natural increase, marriage rate, divorce rate for January to December 2022" . ROSSTAT . Archived from the original on 2 March 2023 . Retrieved 21 February 2023 .
• ↑ Суммарный коэффициент рождаемости [ Total fertility rate ] . Russian Federal State Statistics Service (in Russian). Archived from the original (XLSX) on 10 August 2023 . Retrieved 10 August 2023 .
• ↑ "Демографический ежегодник России" [ The Demographic Yearbook of Russia ] (in Russian). Federal State Statistics Service of Russia (Rosstat) . Retrieved 1 June 2022 .
• ↑ "ВПН-2010" . www.perepis-2010.ru .
• 1 2 3 "Arena: Atlas of Religions and Nationalities in Russia" . Sreda, 2012.
• ↑ 2012 Arena Atlas Religion Maps . "Ogonek", № 34 (5243), 27/08/2012. Retrieved 21/04/2017. Archived .
• ↑ Formation of the legislative body of Sverdlovsk Oblast , old.zsso.ru
• ↑ General information , zsso.ru
• ↑ "Свердловская область" . council.gov.ru .
• ↑ "Результат единороссов по Свердловской области был самым худшим для партии власти" [ The result of United Russia in the Sverdlovsk region was the worst for the ruling party ] . Archived from the original on 10 June 2010 . Retrieved 2 January 2011 .
• ↑ "Sverdlovsk region Industries" . investinregions.ru . Retrieved 7 November 2018 .
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Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia

The capital city of Sverdlovsk oblast: Ekaterinburg .

Sverdlovsk Oblast - Overview

Sverdlovsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia, the largest region of the Urals, located on the border between Europe and Asia in the Urals Federal District. Yekaterinburg is the capital city of the region.

The population of Sverdlovsk Oblast is about 4,264,300 (2022), the area - 194,307 sq. km.

Sverdlovsk oblast flag

Sverdlovsk oblast coat of arms.

Sverdlovsk oblast map, Russia

Sverdlovsk oblast latest news and posts from our blog:.

26 May, 2020 / Unique Color Photos of Yekaterinburg in 1909 .

2 December, 2018 / Yekaterinburg - the view from above .

21 November, 2018 / Abandoned Railway Tunnel in Didino .

12 October, 2017 / Northern Urals: Manpupuner Plateau and Dyatlov Pass .

20 April, 2015 / Multicolored aurora borealis in the Northern Urals .

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History of Sverdlovsk Oblast

The first people settled here in the Stone Age. At the end of the 16th century, the Russian kingdom gained control of the region. In the 17th century, the most significant stage of the initial development of this area happened, when Russian settlers began a massive advance to the east. In 1598, the first settlers founded the town of Verkhoturye on the territory of the present Sverdlovsk region.

Verkhoturye became the first capital of the Urals because of its strategic location on the Babinov road - an important crossroads of trade routes. Sverdlovsk oblast acted as a transshipment base between the central part of the country and the actively developed regions of Siberia and Central Asia.

The presence of strategic reserves of iron and copper ore, as well as large forest areas, predetermined the specialization of the region (ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, wood processing, mining, etc.). Exploration of minerals in the Sverdlovsk region began at the end of the 17th century.

In the 18th century, the Demidov dynasty founded several plants in the region that turned into large production and economic complexes. The local industry was characterized by a high level of technological development. The blast furnaces of the Ekaterinburg, Nevyansk, Tagil iron-making plants were superior in performance to the best European models of that time, and their products were the leading item of Russian exports.

More historical facts…

The launch of the Trans-Siberian Railway became a landmark event in the life of the Middle Urals, allowing large-scale export of plant products. Between 1920 and 1930, the Urals was able to once again take its place as the leading industrial region of Russia by strengthening its mining industry, creating new production facilities, developing energy and mass urban construction.

In the years of the first five-year plans, along with the reconstruction of old enterprises, several new large industrial facilities were opened: Uralmashzavod, Uralelektrotyazhmash, tool and ball bearing plants in Sverdlovsk, Uralvagonzavod and Nizhny Tagil metallurgical plant in Nizhny Tagil, pipe plants in Pervouralsk and Kamensk-Uralsky, copper smelters in Krasnouralsk and Sredneuralsk, the Ural aluminum smelter in Kamensk-Uralsky and others.

On October 3, 1938, the territory of Sverdlovsk Oblast was finally formed. During the Second World War, from July 1941 to December 1942, more than 2 million people came to the Urals region, of which more than 700 thousand stayed in Sverdlovsk Oblast.

In the postwar period, Sverdlovsk Oblast continued to develop as a major industrial center of the Urals. The industry of the region was a supplier of the most important types of machinery, products of ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, chemical, electric power, light, and food industries. Mechanical engineering and metalworking retained their leading place in the structure of the local industry.

Being one of the most important industrial and defense centers of the Soviet Union, the Sverdlovsk region remained closed to foreigners until 1991.

Beautiful nature of Sverdlovsk Oblast

Forest stream in Sverdlovsk Oblast

Author: Vlasov Pavel

Sverdlovsk Oblast nature

Author: Oleg Seliverstov

Sverdlovsk Oblast is rich in forests

Sverdlovsk Oblast - Features

Sverdlovsk Oblast received its name from its administrative center - the city of Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg). The name appeared on January 17, 1934, together with the formation of the region. After renaming Sverdlovsk back to Yekaterinburg, the region was not renamed and retained its Soviet name.

The territory of Sverdlovsk Oblast stretches from west to east for 560 kilometers, from north to south - for 660 kilometers. The climate is continental. The average temperature in January is about minus 16-20 degrees Celsius, in July - plus 19-30 degrees Celsius.

The Sverdlovsk region, being one of the oldest mining regions of Russia, is rich in a variety of natural resources. Today, the local mineral and raw materials base provides a significant part of the production of Russian vanadium, bauxite, chrysotile-asbestos, iron ore, refractory clay. The region is the main raw source for Russian aluminum industry.

There are significant reserves of nickel ores, precious metals, mineral and fresh groundwater, practically unlimited reserves of building materials. There are deposits of stone and brown coals, chromites, manganese and certain prospects for discovering oil and gas fields. Forests cover about 80% of the territory.

Sverdlovsk Oblast is an important transport hub of Russia. The Trans-Siberian Railway passes through its territory. Koltsovo is a large international airport located in Yekaterinburg. The largest cities and towns of Sverdlovsk Oblast are Yekaterinburg (1,493,600), Nizhny Tagil (340,700), Kamensk-Uralsky (162,500), Pervouralsk (117,700), Serov (93,900), Novouralsk (79,000), and Verkhnyaya Pyshma (76,400).

Sverdlovsk Oblast is known for its traditional International exhibition of armament in Nizhny Tagil, annual Russian Economic Forum in Yekaterinburg. Yekaterinburg is the 4th largest scientific center in Russia after Moscow, Saint-Petersburg and Novosibirsk.

It is one of the most important industrial regions of Russia. The structure of the local industrial complex is dominated by ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, enrichment of uranium and iron ore, engineering.

The largest enterprises of ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy are the Nizhnetagilsky Metallurgical Combine, the Kachkanar GOK Vanadiy, VSMPO-Avisma, the Pervouralsky Novotrubny Plant, the Bogoslovsky and the Ural Aluminum Smelters, the Kamensk-Uralsk Metallurgical Plant, the Sinarsky Pipe Plant, the Seversk Pipe Plant, as well as enterprises of the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (Uralelectromed, Sredneuralsky Copper Smelting Plant, Metallurgical Plant named after A.K. Serov, etc.).

The most important enterprises of the machine-building complex are Uralvagonzavod, Ural Heavy Machinery Plant, Uralelectrotyazhmash, Uralkhimmash, Ural Turbine Plant, Ural Civil Aviation Plant. Uralkhimplast, which produces synthetic resins, is the largest chemical plant in Russia.

Attractions of Sverdlovsk Oblast

Coniferous forests and numerous rivers make the nature of the Sverdlovsk region attractive for tourists. There is a number of reserves and nature parks: Visimsky State Nature Reserve, Denezhkin Kamen National Nature Reserve, Pripyshminsky Bory National Park, Oleny Ruchi Nature Park, Chusovaya River Nature Park, Bazhovskiye Places Nature Park, Rezhevskoy Nature and Mineralogical Reserve.

Some of the most interesting sights located outside of Yekaterinburg:

• Nevyansk Tower - a leaning tower in the center of the town of Nevyansk, built by the order of Akinfiy Demidov, the founder of the mining industry in the Urals, in the first half of the 18th century;
• Cathedral of the Savior’s Transfiguration in Nevyansk;
• Battle glory of the Urals - an open-air museum of military equipment in Verkhnyaya Pyshma;
• Automotive equipment museum in Verkhnyaya Pyshma - one of the largest collections of Russian cars, special equipment, motorcycles, bicycles;
• Obelisk symbolizing the border between Europe and Asia in Pervouralsk;
• Verkhoturye - a historical town with a kremlin and a lot of churches called the spiritual center of the Urals. The Cross Exaltation Cathedral of the St. Nicholas Monastery is the third largest cathedral in Russia after the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow and St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg;
• Mount Kachkanar located near the border between Europe and Asia. At the top of the mountain there is the Buddhist Monastery of Shad Tchup Ling;
• Monastery in the name of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers on Ganina Yama standing on the site of the extermination and the first burial of the remains of the family of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his servants;
• Museum Complex Severskaya Domna in Polevskoy, 52 kilometers from Ekaterinburg - an industrial and architectural monument (1860);
• Open-air museum in Nizhnyaya Sinyachikha - Ural wooden architecture and the richest collection of the Ural house painting;
• Severskaya Pisanitsa - a monument with rock paintings and images of the Neolithic Age located near the village of Severka.

Sverdlovsk oblast of Russia photos

Pictures of the sverdlovsk region.

Sverdlovsk Oblast scenery

Author: Anatoliy Kislov

Bridge in Sverdlovsk Oblast

Author: Igor Romanov

Road in the Sverdlovsk region

Sverdlovsk Oblast views

Field of dandelions in Sverdlovsk Oblast

Winter in Sverdlovsk Oblast

Author: Isupov Sergei

Churches in Sverdlovsk Oblast

Abandoned church in the Sverdlovsk region

Author: Timofey Zakharov

Wooden church in Sverdlovsk Oblast

Orthodox church in Sverdlovsk Oblast

Author: Kutenyov Vladimir

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