Controlling the Need for Control
We very much live in a world where — real or perceived — uncontrollable forces have fueled a greater desire to exert control at work, home, or the increasingly intersected lines of both.
The need to control is often viewed as yesterday’s leadership style, characterized by micromanagement, regulated processes, and directed top-down decision making. While most leaders of today do not lead in this manner, for many the need to present an image of being in control is an important characteristic of upward reputational and career management. However, it is in that crease where the truth — and with it, a sense of relatability — is quite different.
Recently, I facilitated a series of small group sessions with financial firm senior executives, helping them along their personal journeys to become even more effective leaders through improved coaching techniques and behaviors. As I closely observed their interactions and learning, I reflected on control-related issues that were latent in the experiences they were sharing.
I could certainly relate.
Self-admittedly, I have built up the need for control ever since my early childhood. Raised in a home where organization, neatness, and cleanliness ruled the day, my parents (in response to their personal experiences as young Holocaust survivors) sought to create a safe and structured familial environment for my sister and me, counter to their own traumatic and uncontrolled early life experiences. Whenever that delicate balance at home was disrupted, stress levels also seemed to elevate.
My need for control manifests itself through detailed organization and having all things in their place, while stressing (or imagining) they are not. As a self-managing approach, detailed organization is an essential part of my being, and has helped me show up as a leader, a coach, or as an advisor to my clients. The satisfaction and fulfillment when things in our home, my home-office, my car, my golf bag, or even my laptop, are put back in the way I feel they should be, is a personal challenge and a professional advantage. Although, I lovingly embrace the unplanned chaos which ensues whenever our beautiful 13-month-old granddaughter enters our home!
As a part of their overall experience and journey of learning, my senior executive clients were invited to share personal stories of a current crossroad faced at home or work. Without much in the way of guidance or guardrails, many shared challenges of a uniquely personal and sometimes difficult nature, and I was very much taken by their willingness and openness to do so. Interestingly enough, in most cases prior to their stories being shared, the crossroad challenges were not known to their long-tenured peers.
Their hierarchical, influential, or financial success notwithstanding, the vulnerability and relatability displayed by these leaders during these storytelling sessions belied their day-to-day image as executives in control, or people who have their acts together. Breaking that “veneer of infallibility” elicited some unfiltered and authentic reactions of support and empathy, illustrating that we are way more than what our titles suggest. Ultimately, many of these senior executives, who self-identified as problem solvers, admitted to facing challenges to which they did not have the answers, or the ability to control. Thus, adding to their personal and professional stress levels.
The author, Paul Auster wrote, “the world is so unpredictable. Things happen suddenly, unexpectedly. We want to feel we are in control of our own existence. In some ways we are, in some ways we’re not. We are ruled by the forces of chance and coincidence”.
In context, we all cope with, compartmentalize, or form structure and processes, even superficially to control what we can while navigating the challenges and ambiguity of work, home, and life.
For some additional perspective, here’s a tangential piece I authored last year about being more relatable and approachable while trying to keep things “under control”.
https://www.edisonpartners.com/blog/r-factor/of/leadership
As you reflect, how do you control your need to control?
