Between Control And Letting Go: Navigating The Tension In Leadership (Part 2/3)
/
Part 2: What Is Ours To Control, And What Is Not
In the first post of this series, we explored how the impulse to control can inadvertently take hold in leadership (and everywhere in life).
The tightening in the jaw.
The urgency to push a point across.
The sense that if you don’t steer things firmly enough, things will fall apart.
Once you begin to notice that impulse, the next step is learning to ask a different question:
What is actually yours to control here, and what is not?
This question is where many leaders get challenged. If leadership comes with responsibility, responsibility can easily slide into the unconscious belief that everything is yours to manage.
Some things are. And many aren’t.
For example, in a conversation with a colleague or a team member:
You can control:
• The steadiness of your presence
• The clarity of what you communicate
• The care you bring to your words
• Your willingness to listen
But you can’t control:
• How quickly someone processes what they hear
• What meaning they make of your words
• How they feel in response
• Whether they immediately agree with you
It’s not a flaw in the system; it’s part of what makes real, useful collaboration possible.
If leaders could control other people’s reactions, emotions, or understanding, teams would be made of extensions of the leader rather than individual thinking beings who can contribute unique talents.
Leadership would become management of compliance, instead of development of collective intelligence.
Therefore, part of evolving as a leader is beginning to explore this boundary more clearly:
What belongs to you. And what belongs to others.
Noticing and working with this question anchors your effort where it can actually have an impact.
In the next post, we’ll explore how leaders learn to navigate the tension between control and letting go once this distinction becomes clearer.
In your leadership conversations, where might you be trying to control something that was never yours to control in the first place?
