5 Signs You’re a Hyper-Control Leader
Hyper-Control leaders rarely take their organization as far as leaders who are skilled team builders.
Are YOU a Hyper-Control Leader? How would you know?
Cue the awkward tension, right?
If you’re even conscious to the question, good for you.
Most leaders who need to ask themselves tough questions won’t. Which means your team might be answering the question instead.
I get it. I’ve learned that I am predisposed to want to do most things by myself, which is never a good idea.
The good news is it’s a tendency you and I can fight and overcome.
Need some motivation?
Just know that your failure to grow a team will ultimately choke the life of your mission.
And with something like 85% of all campuses in declining enrollment, there’s a ton at stake.
The leader who wants to Hyper-Control everything is a leader who is a risk of losing their best talent.
It’s human nature for teams to feel a sense of belonging and ownership to the work.
So, how do you know if you’re a Hyper-Control Leader? Here are 5 signs you are.
1. Nobody Does It As Well As You
Many Hyper-Control leaders honestly think they can do things better than their people. And when you’re starting out, sometimes that’s true.
Your campus isn’t exactly swimming in communication specialists, web developers, project managers, team leaders, and creative thinkers. Further, nobody should think as much about the mission and the future of your campus as you.
Oh, and you don’t have a ton of budget to hire those things out.
So, you attempt to do many of these tasks yourself.
In the early stages of most initiatives, there are many hands-on modeling opportunities needed, indeed.
You can’t just sit back and say, “all I do is cast vision,” when you have a campus draining enrollment and programs.
But inside this idea that you can do things better is a fatal flaw.
First, you’re only actually good at a few things. Own that.
Unless it’s your principal gifting and the most important thing you can do to move the mission forward, you may want to consider giving key tasks away to those who own different gifts than you.
Second, even if you have people who are almost as good as you are in an area, a good rule of thumb is to farm out that responsibility quickly.
Why? Because they’ll get better.
And, because you need to have the capacity to focus on becoming more brilliant than busy.
Leaders who desire to become world-class, spend time developing their primary gifts. They learn to delegate very, very well.
After nearly three decades in leadership, I’ve realized I’m only wickedly good at a few things:
✅ Coaching Potential
✅ Team Building/Collaboration
✅ Strategic Ideation
I can assess talent quickly, pull people together around ideas and content, and align new strategies to win.
Everything else falls off a steep cliff quickly.
When I bring those gifts in service to any campus team, I help move their success forward. When I try to do anything else, it’s almost always an average performance (at best)6.
You’re no different.
So, what are you great at? Develop that and let so much of the other stuff go.
2. You Feel “The Guilties” Letting Go
“Great theory, Joe,” you say. But I feel guilty letting go and giving any important work to other people.
Really?
Why?
Maybe you need some time in reflection to get to the root of that.
Listen, it’s not a unique problem. Many leaders feel guilty about giving assignments, tasks, and whole areas of responsibility to other people. But if that’s you, you really need to drill down on why that is.
Essentially your unwillingness to let go assumes you have been favored with all the best gifts, and no one else is gifted.
That’s pride.
And it means that you will refuse to let other people explore and develop their God-given gifts.
Why would you feel guilty about letting people lean into their gifting?
Own that.
RECLAIM MOMENTUM
Learn how to drive high community trust and higher team performance via our 2-Hour {Live} keynote delivered on your campus to your team(s).
3. You Are Threatened By Gifted People
Let’s be honest. Deep down, you and I can feel threatened by gifted people.
What’s underneath that emotion?
Insecurity.
And unchecked, insecurity permanently stunts your growth and the growth of your organization.
Insecurity is unattractive. If you really go there, you’ll find fear, jealousy, anxiety, and all kinds of nasty things brewing under that self-doubt.
So how do you battle your insecurity? By doing the opposite of what you feel like doing.
➜ Welcome the gifts of other people.
➜ Give them responsibility.
➜ Celebrate people who are more gifted that you.
➜ Trust.
You’ll discover everyone becomes better, including you.
4. You Fear Others Will Fail
You say, “But what happens when I give important tasks to gifted people, and they mess up or take things in the wrong direction?” “That’s why I need to stay in control.”
Nope. That will get you right back to stunting the growth of your team and mission.
The fear you have of delegating and having people head off in the wrong direction is much easier to solve than you might think.
These are issues of clarity.
Teams align around clarity. Having a clear mission, clear strategies, standards, and clear values, clearly articulated means you can deploy many leaders and never have them run things off the rails.
In the absence of clarity, you will default to control because you worry that leaders will take your system to places you don’t believe it should go.
And the truth is, they might. Not because they’re underperformers, but because you haven’t been clear with them.
So, if you want to release and leverage your most talented leaders, your job is to state the mission, vision, and strategy clearly enough that it’s simple, scalable, and sustainable for everyone.
In the absence of clarity, well-intentioned team members end up going rogue, not because they’re trying to be disloyal, but because you never clearly defined the destination.
The more clarity you have as a leader, the less you will feel the need to be a Hyper-Control leader.
5. You’re Chronically Overwhelmed
The final reason you’ll want to stay a Hyper-Control leader is that you’re so overwhelmed you feel like you can’t change anything. In fact, you might feel that you can barely finish reading this blog article.
Hyper-Control leaders always feel overwhelmed because the mission of your campus should always outsize the capacity of an individual… Including you.
Guess what? That will never go away unless you transform. It’s a mindset thing.
The best way to crush this interference is to start empowering (not overpowering or disempowering) others.
You will stay overwhelmed when you Hyper-Control and your mission will never grow or move forward.
On the better side of this, you may feel overwhelmed for a while because you’re opening up and beginning to empower others.
That’s an entirely different kind of overwhelm - and one that will eventually go away as you find your sweet spot and your team performance grows.
So, the choice is yours:
➜ The permanent kind that stays because you’ll never delegate anything.
➜ The temporary kind that eventually becomes habituated across your system, and YOU find RELIEF.
Your call!
Stop the Gravitational Pull of Average Attitudes and Average Performance
I know how much the leadership grind has on the overall health of yourself and your team and I trust that your calendar shows evidence of a few intermittent “recharge” breaks.
But don’t be fooled.
I’m here to remind you that unless your campus culture brings you more life than it sucks out of you, there are not enough vacation days in your contract to keep you healthy and vibrant.
Think of what you and your team have endured.
Leaders hate when I say this (while they shake their heads in agreement), but managing crisis was challenging but leading OUT of crisis will be much more complex and demanding.
Healthy leaders and teams will be in high demand to build (not rebuild) the plans and strategies to navigate the unchartered territory ahead.
You need to act and Reclaim Your Momentum!
I’m going on tour to help you get it back.
I’ve turned this essential topic into a 2-hour LIVE keynote that I’m delivering to campus leadership teams across the county over the next two months.
If you’re like most campus leaders, you’ve spent countless hours these past years putting out fires, dealing with negativity, drama, and just plain old burnout across the board.
And, like so many others, you’re fed up with feeling stuck.
It’s time to take action.
What are you waiting for?
It would be an honor to be your guide and help you and your team regain lost ground and Reclaim Your Momentum.
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