Are You Leading or Controlling? (2-Minute Check)

Picture this:

A leader who needs to approve every decision.
Gets anxious if not CC’d on every email.
Thinks no one can do it better than them.
Calls it high standards.
Their team calls it exhausting.

Self-Checklist (No Judgment):

• Do you need to approve every decision?
• Do you feel uneasy when you’re not CC’d on every email?
• Do you catch yourself thinking, “No one can do it better than me”?
• Do you secretly prefer compliance over creativity?
• Do you fear that if you don’t control it, it will collapse?
• Are your best people disengaging or quietly leaving?
• Are you exhausted but convinced you’re irreplaceable?

If you answered “yes” to even two…
You’re not leading.
You’re controlling.
And you’re sliding into toxic leadership.

The Inconvenient Truth:

Control feels like power.
But it’s actually fear: fear of failure, fear of irrelevance, fear of not being enough.

In the short term, control feels efficient.
In the long term, it builds a fragile empire: hollow, brittle, and destined to collapse.

Here’s what happens when you lead through control:

• You burn out.
• Your best talent leaves.
• Your company slows down, not speeds up.
• Innovation suffocates.
• You become the bottleneck you once tried to fix.

Control is not leadership. It's insecurity disguised as ambition.

Simple, Not Easy 2 Solutions:

1. Empower Instead of Control:

• Delegate decisions with real ownership.
• Focus on outcomes, not micromanaging processes.
• Stop being the genius. Start building a team of geniuses.

2. Lead Through Trust (Not Fear):

• Assume competence first. Don’t default to doubt.
• Set clear expectations, then step back and let people deliver.
• Inspect results, not every move.
• P.S: Trust, but Verify, Always.

You can’t control the stars.
You can’t control every detail.
And you sure as hell can’t build greatness with a clenched fist.
Open your hands or watch everything slip through your fingers.