The Fallacy of Control

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I’ll tell you what always humbles me: the reminder that I’m not in control.

In the past six weeks, I had a family emergency requiring me to fly back to California. Then, I got sick with Covid.

As you can imagine, I missed a lot of meetings and emails and conversations I was expecting to have – not to mention, I missed two of my scheduled livestreams on LinkedIn!?

These experiences were poignant reminders that control is a fallacy. And it’s critically important that disruptive leaders understand this. Afterall, for much of history, we’ve assumed that “leadership” and “control” go hand-in-hand. And that couldn’t be farther from the truth today.

The New Way of Defining Control?

First of all, “leader” is not a title, it's a mindset. Anyone, in any role, can be a leader.

Think about it: when you see a change that needs to happen, anyone (like you!) can put on the mantle of leadership and step into that void. You become that leader who helps people understand your vision, no matter what your business card says. You don’t accomplish this by forcing or threatening people to do your bidding, right? Of course not.??

With true leaders, there's no control. Instead, there are relationships.?

And in the best relationships, everyone feels safe making the occasional mistake, breaking the occasional promise, or simply going with the flow when circumstances change. That’s because the best relationships have an element of grace, understanding, and forgiveness in them.

Now, picture the actual leaders in your life: The people who if you were given the chance to work with again, you would jump at that opportunity. You probably don't remember exactly what they did or said, but you do remember how they made you feel.?

This is not only true at work with your direct reports or teams, but with yourself and your relationship to your audience, customers, and partners, too.?

Relationships are built over time. We know they are always evolving and never perfect. In the same way, leaders are evolving and imperfect, too. So because true leadership is a relationship, it's constantly changing and growing and morphing into something new and hopefully, better.?

When you're thinking about your own life and leadership style, think about how you’re creating a relationship and a level of trust amongst your peers that evokes confidence to make decisions to achieve your objectives.?

This comes to bear when life’s unexpected twists and turns remind you that as the leader of yourself and your life, you’re not in control either! But the relationships you have with yourself, your team, your colleagues, and your family can give you the grace and space to rise to the occasion of any sudden change.?

Three Ways to Create Deeper Leader Relationships?

1. Be vulnerable. This is hard for many leaders, but admitting to not having all the answers, and sharing your mistakes will deepen your relationship with your team (and anyone!). The reality is that 99% of the decisions we make are reversible. So if you realize you made a wrong turn, admit your mistake! This results in three benefits: 1) It relieves you of the responsibility of having to know what the answer is all the time; 2) It enables you to bring in more people on your team, maybe even outside of the company, to help you find the right answer together, and; 3) It creates a strong sense of ownership of the problem amongst everybody.?
2. Move out of your comfort zone. The more people can see that you’re out of your comfort zone, the more they’ll be encouraged to get out of their comfort zones – and that’s where growth, disruption and innovation occur. If you come across like you're totally comfortable with constant change and turmoil, then people will feel like you’re perfect. However, when people can empathize with you feeling uncomfortable, then they won’t feel so alone and you won't feel so alone.?
3. Prepare yourself for imperfection and admit when you're wrong. And to be okay with it! Again: 99% of the decisions we make are reversible! So you can go forward with a decision, and if you realize it's wrong, then you can always go back. This is tremendously important to model to your team, as well, so they have permission to take the risks and make the mistakes that are inevitable when disrupting the status quo.

In disruptive times, leadership is all the more important because it's tough to create big change. What's so important about disruptive leadership is knowing you can’t do it alone. To make big-scale change you must empower your team and the people who follow you because it's they who will make the change work.?

I think in many ways that's the most interesting thing about leadership in disruptive times: you have to give up the fallacy that you are in control. Change is uncomfortable, and many people resist it. You can’t make them change, you must inspire them to change. And you do that by investing in the relationship with your followers so that you are confident that when the moment comes when you give the command for action, they will act.?

Your Turn

Where have you given up control? What did you learn from it? Let me know in the comments. I love hearing from you!

Reminder: I’m at Burning Man this week and next week! I’ll return to my regular Tuesday livestreams on September 13th.