6 Ways To Know if You are a Control Freak

Overcontrol diminishes trust. Control-freak leaders have a hard time building truly great teams. Their lack of trust in subordinates hamstrings creativity and superior performance.

If you think you over control, or if you see lack of trust on your team, give yourself this quiz:

On a scale of 1 to 5, rate your need for control in various situations. Let one mean “never” and five mean “always.” Look at your past month’s activities. Where and how frequently did you need absolute control?
Are you open to other people’s ideas, creativity, advice, and vision? Why or why not? What’s your response when someone wants to bring new methods or ideas?
What can you do today to be more flexible as you work with subordinates? How could you encourage their needs, creativity, and vision?
Do you enjoy learning? Do you have a willingness to try new things? If not, why not? Is it because only your ideas have merit?
What steps can you take to create a climate for change in your company, organization or ministry?
Have you gotten to know your subordinates well enough to know their Growth Achievement Potential (GAP)? What are you doing to motivate people according to their GAP?

While this is not an exhaustive list, it will go a long way to show you if you are a control freak. Remember trust is a two-way street. If you expect to be trusted, you need to trust your people and part of trusting your people is listening to and including their ideas, creativity and GAP.