The Limitations of Reactive Leadership - A Focus on Controlling

The Limitations of Reactive Leadership – A Focus on Controlling An Excerpt from Mastering Leadership: An Integrated Framework for Breakthrough Performance and Extraordinary Business Results, by Robert J. Anderson and William A. Adams (Wiley, 2015) The word reactive is to be hasty, kneejerk, imprudent, combative, oversensitive, unthinking, touchy, volatile, or sensitive. Allow me to talk about Controlling Leadership. Controlling type leaders use power to get things done. Results are what matters most to them. Using power to achieve outcomes often entails diminishing participation and respect for others. This undermines collective effectiveness and intelligence. When you are a controlling leader, it suggests that you strive to take charge, be on top, and you exert control over others to gain self-worth, personal safety, and identity. You see the world as made up of winners and losers, where powerful people stand the best chance. You believe that to survive, you must be one of them. You must excel heroically, be perfect, perform flawlessly, and/or dominate. Hence, you become one of the movers and shakers of the world. Controlling leadership reflects the extent to which you establish a sense of personal security and worth through task accomplishment, personal achievement, power, and control. Controlling leadership is comprised of four subscales: Perfect, Driven, Ambition, and Autocratic. Today let me focus on reactive leadership, controlling with a tendency for perfection. The general behaviors associated with the Controlling dimension include: Competing, setting exacting standards, striving for perfection, using authority to take charge, influence, and get your way, exerting tremendous effort and energy to achieve goals, speaking directly and bluntly, pushing yourself and others to win, taking charge in most situations. The downside of the Controlling Leadership is the constant need (conscious or unconscious) to continuously excel, dominate, compete, win, and control. Until we meet in the next episode, have a fantastic week.