Letting go of controlling others is one of the hardest things to do as a manager and leader within a business. After all you ARE still completely accountable for the outcome and what is actually achieved – so if that is the case then doesn’t it make perfect sense that you need to control the people and the task to ensure the right outcome is achieved at the right time?
No that is not right and here is why………
This is the hardest paradigm to challenge in existing and emerging leaders – and we do it in our leadership programs by explaining that they are the only person allowed to be them. No one is an exact clone of them so they cannot expect that another person can “do it just like them”. Others cannot think exactly the same way as you do, talk the same way and feel the same way – all at the same time as it happens for you – we are each unique and need to celebrate this uniqueness.
While we know this intellectually, most managers and leaders still find it hard to put it into practice. We still find them controlling and “bossing” others around to be “just like them” and produce the outcome in exactly the way they would have done it. This strangles the people who work for them and actively discourages intuition, initiative, engagement and curiosity.
We live in an age of “knowledge workers” and this approach is no longer relevant – people do not want to be controlled. We are educating young people to question and to initiate and then we expect them to accept when we want to “beat it out of them” so they do exactly what they are told to do by their leaders.
The sooner managers and leaders learn (and trust) to enCOURAGE others to be themselves and perform to THEIR “best” the sooner the team will shift into high performance and the manager/leader will find it takes less energy and direction from them to achieve brilliant results. In some cases results may be even better than if they had done it themselves.
This takes vulnerability, agility and trust – rather than power and perfectionism.
Courageous Leaders appreciate the importance of inspiring others to work and be at their best – they know how important it is to stop trying to control the people and the tasks.
