Don’t Confuse Control with Leadership
Control feels good in the moment—but it slowly kills your team’s initiative.
If you’re in every email…
If you’re rewriting everything that was delegated…
If nothing moves forward unless you touch it—you’re not leading, you’re bottlenecking.
Leadership isn’t about doing it all. It’s about equipping people to do what you don’t have to do.
As Craig Groeschel says, “If you delegate tasks, you create followers. If you delegate authority, you create leaders.”
Today, let go of one thing. Resist the urge to tweak, micromanage, or override.
Control feels productive—but it’s often fear in disguise.
Love this bit of wisdom. Too often a leader unknowingly becomes a dictator by having to be involved in every step and it often creates a strong lack of confidence in those that they are "leading". It's a domino effect that can make it feel like those being led can do nothing right. Pastor Craig's quote is spot on!
Lord, when given the opportunity, please guide me out of my own way and help me create and not bottleneck!
Thanks for sharing!
I worked for controlling person for a season. He was blinded and deceived by fear of failure and had no clue how to give authority to others in his company. He left the country on an extended stay and asked me to try to make a “deal” concerning stalled out negotiations on the purchase of a large valuable asset situated overseas. Bottom line, I successfully negotiated a more favorable deal than he had been able to, but when he returned and learned of my success, jealousy overwhelmed him because I was able to accomplish what he hadn’t. So he took control back of the situation and ended up offending the sellers and they withdrew from the deal all together! He gave me a task, but without authority to close. Needless to say, this leader failed miserably. Morale was most always low with the employees. We were demoralized often by the fear based “control” he wielded.