How to Help Those Who Feel Burned by a Controlling Leader
Controlling to one is liberating to another.
All leaders disappoint. Some are too controlling. Others are too hands-off. Your response to disappointing leadership impacts the trajectory of your career.
Controlling leaders:
- Disrespect and devalue talent. Successful leaders hire talented people, set high expectations, and get out of the way. One of my friends told me that his job is to remove obstacles. Controlling leaders ARE obstacles to talented team members.
- Demotivate teams. Why work hard when you’re treated like a puppet?
- Create stress for themselves.
How to help people who feel burned by controlling leaders:
#1. Help people shift from external to internal focus.
It’s self-affirming and safe to focus on the faults of others. Help people move from thinking about others to thinking about themselves.
All the great battles are within.
The real battle – when you feel mistreated – is about you and your response.
Will you press forward for the advantage or yourself and your team? Or will you squander your talent by pulling back and playing it safe?
The great battles are with fear, bitterness, revenge, and powerlessness, when you feel mistreated.
Think more about wise response than offense taken.
The internal battle of ‘letting go’ when you feel wronged sets trajectory.
Looking inward requires:
- Courage.
- Humility.
- Honesty.
- Time.
- Self-compassion.
#2. Express empathy and help people work on themselves.
Listen to complaints and frustrations. Agree that it’s frustrating and discouraging to feel disrespected by a controlling leader. After listening, turn the conversation.
- How might you be a better leader as a result of working for a controlling leader?
- How might you bring your best self to work even though your leader is disappointing?
How might you help people who feel burned by a controlling leader?
*This is part two of a response to an email I received. Read the email and part one: DEAR DAN: HELP PEOPLE WHO WORK FOR A CONTROL FREAK
Like the recorrence if parenting as you were parented, leading like you are led is a common practice because many only know one way to lead. While you cannot change the way you are led, you can disrupt the pattern & positively effect those that YOU lead.
leaders who are controlling have not been trained in leadership skills, they are at the mercy of their behavioural traits. Sometimes the only options are to either train leaders or move them. Burnout workers are less productive at work and less resilient to stress and conflict.
A controlling leader, is no leader at all. He/she got there somtimes by attrition, or some other uncanny means. Mico-management and a controlling leader are one and the same. The key to good and effective leadership is and always will be EMPOWERMENT. Without empowerment you have maintenance. Nothing wrong with that. It is an honest job but maintenance belongs in the maintenance department, not leading a group or an organization. Vision, empowerment, execution, the winning ticket.
I have learned more from poor leaders then good ones. I have noticed a pattern in them. They are insecure, paranoid, controlling and very angry. I use to try to fix them then I learned its not my job to fix anyone. It takes time but at some point management will deal with it. Then its time to review those left behind and see who can move on. Sad to say some employees will be so bitter they may not ever trust anyone from that agency again.
Hi Dan Thanks for this – it’s an important topic. Sometimes working with someone that’s really difficult acts like the grit in the oyster’s shell. Without that grit we’d have no pearls. I’m not suggesting deliberately going out to find awkward customers as bosses, but the upside from having these difficulties is, as you say, the opportunity to work on oneself. We often see aspects of ourselves we’d prefer not to have when we respond to being treated badly (bitterness, anger, viciousness, vengefulness, cowardice etc). Helping ourselves through this with understanding and compassion can mean the difference between apathy and constructive growth which responds flexibly to all kinds of stimulus (negative or positive). This is not to condone bad, negative leadership! It’s just to see the possibilities for personal growth dealing with it can throw up. Alison