Replace "authority" with "control" and that'll end your leadership era...

I know the title is a bit too drastic but bear with me as it is intentional!

Let's start with definitions of a few terms; Leadership, Authority, and Control. I define Leadership as the ability to entice others to "want" to follow you

Authority and control are used to create and maintain consistency in doing the processes, operations, and tasks and to reach the company’s goals and objectives.

To have authority over someone is to have expertise over and above someone and to appear as the expert or more knowledgeable, wiser, or more experienced. 

To have control over something or someone speaks of having power over them, not necessarily because of one’s qualifications but one’s strength, power, and dominance. Managers should not confuse these two or they will have issues within the department or organization.

Feeling “control” over others can feel effective to a manager but it is not viewed the same from the other side of the aisle, from the team members’ point of view. Dominance can only kill team members’ willingness, engagement, and ownership and it is hardly and rarely effective. (Blog.hubpost.com)

It is always annoying to feel control over someone from the recipient's point of view. Sometimes the main reason some managers wish to exert control is for the sake of feeling power. Otherwise, it doesn’t have any other positive attributes. The clear distinction between authority and control is precisely intended to avoid the need to control someone or his/her actions.

It is not necessary to control when authority is both legal and recognized. Having said that, if the authority is not legal or recognized, in order to prove and demonstrate their authority, the management/leadership will have to resort to control. Control will give the "fake" feeling that they have authority over the followers, which normally results in forceful control. The manager or a leader that has to remind his/her followers of his/her position, has lost control already. Desperately trying to regain it will only make it more obvious that control is badly lost!

Your authority that should come as a result of your superior knowledge, expertise, and experience is quite sufficient to get the job done! No resorting to gain control or forceful control is necessary!

Godspeed!

Hormoz Mogarei