One of my favorite quotes that gets at the essence of leadership comes from Stephen Covey. I often open with it in my leadership workshops and keynotes:

You can’t “lead” things. You can’t lead inventories, cash flow and costs. You can’t lead information, time structures, processes, facilities and tools. You have to manage them.

Why? Because things don’t have the freedom to choose. Only people do.

So, you lead (empower) people. You manage and control things. The problem is, the organizational legacy we’ve all inherited says you do need to manage and control people.

Now, isn’t this simply the nub of it all?

To start with, it’s in our psychological DNA, as humans, to want to control–manage–our immediate environment. That includes the people with whom we come into contact. Add to this the expectation of companies that managers control their departments. That includes their employees. Add to this that most managers started their careers in a professional, technical or hands-on capacity where it was their job to manage “things” (e.g. deliveries, numbers, data processed, hamburgers flipped).

Our biggest obstacle to being their “best boss ever” is our default need to control our employees–what they do, how they do it, the attitude they bring into the workplace, and their level of job satisfaction. Until we let go of this need and realize that we can’t make them do anything or feel any particular way or be satisfied and keen  we will never ascend to that level of effectiveness that we read about in all those best seller leadership books. For some managers, letting this go becomes a life-long journey and some never succeed in it.

A large focus of our management and leadership programs is teaching participating managers how to engage, challenge and inspire their employees, rather than how to “get” staff to perform and feel positive about their job and the organization.

Are you still clutching on to the need–and responsibility–to control your people? Consider, if you will, gradually relaxing your grip and opening up to a way of leading that really gets results.