Six strategies to tame your “control freak” tendencies
Yes, you can delegate without sacrificing standards — here’s how!
Ever been called a control freak? A perfectionist? Or—worst of all—a micromanager?
The truth is, all of us need to loosen the reins on some aspect of our work and empower others to do that job instead.
But before I go too far, let me say something really important.
Your desire for control isn’t a bad thing.
It means you want to make sure that your business is performing well on every front. That’s vital! Strong, clear standards matter in the marketplace, and it’s the job of a leader to hold everyone to that level of excellence.
But we get in trouble when our need for control gets out of control.
I’ve seen too many promising leaders fall short of their potential because they couldn’t relinquish control. If you don’t know how to delegate and empower others, here’s what can happen:
- The need for approval creates bottlenecks and limits agility and responsiveness
- Getting overly involved in day-to-day work means losing sight of bigger picture thinking and planning
- A desire to have things done “just so” creates resentment and frustration on the team and keeps future leaders from emerging
That’s certainly not a recipe for leadership success!
So today, I want to share some wisdom to help you navigate those “control freak” moments. With these six strategies, you can calibrate the right blend of empowerment and control.
1. Let people earn their autonomy
If you want to get better at letting go of responsibility, it gets easier when you’re confident the person you’re turning things over to is ready for it.
You can't just say, “here, you've got the job, now you go do it!”
Autonomy is an earned right. It’s up to you to make sure someone has the capability to do the job—and to keep the “training wheels” on until you’re confident they’re ready.
When someone demonstrates they have the capability, then you can give up control.
This simple discipline will make you SO much better at letting go. Work alongside people and help them earn that autonomy, and it will feel natural to turn them loose when they’ve shown you they’re ready.
2. Set clear expectations
As I’ve said, that desire for control is a good thing. It’s how you ensure you’re hitting your standards and staying involved at the right level.
The trick is to dial in the right level of control for the right circumstances.
One of the most helpful frameworks I’ve heard for this comes from Michael Bungay-Stanier, the bestselling author and founder of Box of Crayons. When it was time for him to pass the leadership baton to a new CEO, he wanted to make sure he empowered her while also keeping the right level involvement as a founder.
Their transition consultant recommended they use the “tree” model from Susan Scott's book, Fierce Conversation, where each decision is classified as a “root,” “trunk,” “branch,” or “twig.” framework.
Here’s how it worked: twig decisions are small decisions he would never know about. Branch decisions are those he might hear about, but have no real input on. In a trunk decision, the new CEO would come to him for discussion, but make the final decision herself. And a root decision is one that he would make as the founder.
They discussed which types of decisions would fit under each classification, and just like that, they had a framework to navigate decisions with clarity on each person’s involvement.
If you want to get better at delegation, try the tree framework yourself, or find some other way to bring clarity and structure to how you think about delegating work.
Hear Michael Bungay Stanier share this insight on the How Leaders Lead app >>
3. Create guardrails
In some cases, you can’t just give unchecked responsibility to an employee. But you still want them to be empowered to make decisions themselves, especially when customers are involved.
Delegation doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. Find ways to set guardrails and calibrate the right balance of autonomy and control.
This is a strategy we used at Yum! Brands. We wanted to empower our front-line team to keep customers happy. Not often, but occasionally, a customer would have a problem with their order and make a complaint to a team member.
If that team member couldn’t make the situation better, things would go from bad to worse.
So we gave our frontline team members the power to give customers their money back. But we set a monetary threshold, knowing it would cover most issues without creating additional complications.
It let our people know that we trusted them to make the right decision by the customer, and it helped us take care of dissatisfied customers, too.
4. Add accountability
In addition to clear communication and guardrails, you also need to pair your delegation with accountability.
As you give ownership and trust to others, create a measure of success and set a process for regular follow-up.
That way, everyone is clear what success looks like and how to measure it.
Those accountability sessions give you a natural space to offer coaching and guidance to your team members. It turns what could be a frustrating feeling of being micromanaged into an empowering feeling of being coached. Plus, you get peace of mind that the work you’ve delegated is being done at the standard you need it to be.
5. Bet on the people you’ve hired
At the end of the day, giving up control is risky. On this point, I’m reminded of a terrific insight from my recent conversation with HubSpot CEO Irina Novoselsky.
Her advice? Bet on your people.
“Sometimes we wait so long to give someone a chance to just do the job,” Irina says. “But if you know their character, their values, [and] their work ethic, that to me is the least risk that you can make as a business decision.”
After all, you’ve hired them. Back them by giving them that next level of responsibility. If you don’t feel like you can, why’d you hire them in the first place?
In many situations where a leader is struggling to give up control, it’s not always a delegation problem. It might be a hiring problem. If you’ve done a good job of training, setting expectations, and creating a process for accountability, then you may just not have the right person in that role.
But the more likely scenario is that they’re ready to do the job, and it’s up to you to get comfortable with the risk and let them have it.
Hear Irina Novoselsky share this insight on the How Leaders Lead app >>
6. Count the cost of NOT giving up control
Sometimes we struggle to give up control because we think we’re going to miss something. An opportunity will get overlooked, a mistake will happen, or something won’t get “done right.”
But remember, you’re missing a ton of things by NOT giving up control.
The time and energy you spend in the weeds with other people’s work is time you’re not spending pursuing big goals and adding the value that only youbring to your organization.
There’s a cost for your team and culture, too, as employees feel less empowered and decisions get bogged down and less agile.
Remind yourself of that reality the next time you’re tempted to jump into the weeds. Ask yourself what that involvement could cost you, and it’ll get easier to stay out of the way.
Let’s sum things up, shall we?
Remember, your need for control isn’t a bad thing. Your standard for excellence matters, and it’s probably a big reason for your success in your career.
But successful careers also mean working with other people, and the people you work with need to feel empowered and equipped to do their job—without someone looking over their shoulder all the time.
Sure, they might not make the same decision you would. And they may do something differently than you would. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re wrong. In fact, the benefit of your team feeling empowered is likely worth more than those small differences of opinion anyway.
With a few practical strategies and mindset changes, you can make sure your desire for control is working for you, not against you, and build a more empowered and dynamic team, too.
Now, I’d love to hear from you! Do you have “control freak” tendencies? If so, which of these strategies would benefit you most, and why? I’d also love to hear your strategies for how you balance control and empowerment.
Drop me a note in the comments below so I can learn from you!