Part 6. Understanding your Controlling and Achieving behaviours in the Leadership Circle Profile
The next few posts will help you explore Reactive (less effective for leadership) and Creative (more effective) ways of working with others. For previous posts in the "Inspiring leadership" series and an introduction to the LCP tool, go to the bottom of this page.
"If I don't do it myself - it will not be of needed quality."
"I'm working long hours, but I don't know how to change that."
"I know I'll benefit from letting go, but I don't trust them to get the same results."
This is what Controlling looks like, often with adverse effects on the leader, their team and their organisation. And it resides in the Reactive side of a Leadership Circle Profile (LCP).
Imagine a football coach jumping onto the playing field and trying to score a goal themselves... Or a team captain holding on to the ball and not passing it to other players on the team.
This is what I see leaders do when they are struggling to let go. When they have beliefs that drive them to be hyperfocused on immediate results and miss out on the wider impact their behaviours are having.
Yes, you can be one of the strongest players on your team, even in your industry, but your team may not be winning.
This is what Michael Jordan faced when the Chicago Bulls weren't a winning team. The Netflix docuseries "The Last Dance" shows the conversations the Bull's coach Phil Jackson had with Michael Jordan, saying Michael needed to shift his perfectionism and high-performance mindset from only himself to the wider team. Which meant he needed to expand from self-leadership to team leadership and help the team grow, to play together better. This was a mindset shift for Michael. And this is what this "Inspiring leadership" series is about: an invitation to shift our mindsets, where needed.
Compare the above quotes, representing Controlling in the Reactive, with thinking in the Creative competencies:
"I know I will feel frustrated, but my team needs to be able to do this on their own."
"Let's work towards high quality together, here is how it worked for me in the past."
"I understand it will take longer and the initial results will be worse, but we are aiming for long-term performance of the whole team and I will manage expectations of all stakeholders, starting with myself."
This thinking is closer to the Creative mindset, when we know we may have beliefs that can trigger us to take over, but we can manage those beliefs because we have a bigger vision and a longer-term perspective. Welcome, once again, to adult and leadership development.
From Controlling (Reactive) to Achieving (Creative)
We're now looking at the right side of the Leadership Circle Profile: the Task domain.
Although both Controlling and Achieving summary dimensions are about getting the job done, they differ in HOW a leader works with others, driven by different underlying beliefs. The below distinctions are taken from LCP’s interpretation manual and the Self-Assessment guide, available on Leadership Circle’s website.
Controlling (Reactive)
The Controlling dimension measures the extent to which you establish a sense of personal security and worth through task accomplishment, personal achievement, power, and control.
Although being able to stand your ground and move projects forward is a useful ability to have (and this is what leaders are often expected to do), notice the bold text above as this is where the trap is: people who overidentify themselves and their self-worth with achieving tasks tend to react badly when things aren't going their way, thus limiting the positive impact they could be having.
The Controlling dimension is composed of these tendencies (and remember, Leadership Circle's definition of these tendencies is different from a dictionary definition, as they each measure distinct leadership behaviours):
Perfect – your need to attain flawless results and perform to extremely high standards in order to feel secure and worthwhile as a person.
Driven – the extent to which you are in overdrive.
Ambition – the extent to which you need to get ahead, move up in the organization, and be better than others.
Autocratic – your tendency to be forceful, aggressive, and controlling.
A High Controlling Rating (66 or above) means you strive to take charge, be on top, and exert control over others in order to gain self-worth, personal safety, and identity.
A Low Rating (33 or below) means you have few of the characteristics described above. It further suggests (depending on your scores on other scales) that you may possess many of the strengths of this stance without the liabilities.
Internal Assumptions
Internal Assumptions are the beliefs you use to organize your identity. They are the inner rules or beliefs that define how you see yourself and your relationship to the world. The Internal Assumptions often associated with the Controlling dimension include:
I stay safe by taking charge
Only the strong survive and I will be one of them
I need to triumph over others to feel good about myself
Anything less than perfect is not okay
I am a valuable person when people look up to me with admiration
The world is made up of winners and losers (notice the black and white, either-or thinking here)
Being less than others is unacceptable and threatens my security
Failure, of any proportion, could lead to my demise
Behaviours
Behaviors are the external expression of your internal assumptions. 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
Controlling Gifts and Strengths
Every Reactive dimension is capable and gifted. When using the strengths of the Controlling dimension you will tend towards:
Pursuing continuous improvement
Excelling in many situations
Setting high standards
Creating results
Influencing others
Speaking your opinion even if it is controversial
Taking charge and getting into action
Liabilities
Every Reactive dimension has liabilities and limitations. The downside of the Controlling dimension is the constant need (conscious or unconscious) to continuously excel, dominate, compete, win, and control. These needs result in behaviors which tend toward:
Being overly aggressive
Discounting or ignoring negative feedback
Believing your own “press”
Demanding flawless performance of yourself and others
Overlooking others’ aspirations and goals
Having a strong need to compete causing you to see everything in terms of winning and losing
Fearing and avoiding failure
Becoming so preoccupied with winning that you lose focus on the pursuit of excellence and achievement and, as a result, do not perform up to your real potential
Putting results ahead of the work group’s feelings
Setting unrealistic standards of performance for others
Managing in high-control ways that are costly to the organization
Scoring high suggests that you have a need to be seen as aggressive, strong, invulnerable, right, on top, better/ more than others, perfect, flawless, and/or heroic. You may struggle with relationships, team development, and collaboration skills (see Relating from the previous post).
Correlations with Leadership Effectiveness
As a reminder, a high Controlling score is a sign that you value results and that you're probably valued for bringing results, but it also means that you can be dictated by those results and succumb to the pressures when facing deadlines or when quality may be affected. Pressures that lead you to stepping in too much and your team's potential not being utilised as much as it can be.
The table below shows the negative correlation between Controlling tendencies (Perfect, Driven, Ambitious, Autocratic) and Leadership Effectiveness (-0.41).
Compare it with the Creative competencies in the Achieving dimension (Strategic Focus, Purposeful & Visionary, Achieves Results, Decisiveness) and their strong correlation with Leadership Effectiveness of 0.91. The invitation is to see how you can develop these creative competencies and where they will be better suited for where you want to be in your career, and in life.
Achieving (Creative)
Achieving measures the extent to which you offer visionary, authentic, and high-achievement leadership.
It is composed of:
Strategic Focus – the extent to which you think strategically.
Purposeful & Visionary – the extent to which you clearly communicate and model commitment to personal purpose and vision.
Achieves Results – the degree to which you are goal-directed and have a track record of goal achievement and high performance.
Decisiveness – your ability to make decisions on time, and the extent to which you are comfortable moving forward in uncertainty.
A High Rating suggests that you maintain a high standard of excellence in your work and activities. You tend to be recognized as a leader in your chosen field of endeavour. Your own values, beliefs, vision, and intuitions motivate you from within. You take responsibility for your own actions and circumstances.
Risk taking is easier because you have a high sense of self-worth. Your inner self-confidence is clearly projected to the outside world.
You tend to empower others by modelling and teaching your creative process. You know how to create vision and translate vision into strategies, strategies into goals, and goals into actions that achieve results. Your optimism, creativity, and natural curiosity are contagious. Others learn this just by being around you.
You have a deep sense of purpose, and create out of love for the result or the process of creating. You do what you do, not as a means to prove your worth or assure security, but because you want to be creative, learn and grow.
A Low Rating means you may lack many of the competencies that help you make things happen. You should examine internal assumptions that may be blocking your creative capability.
Internal Assumptions
Internal assumptions are the beliefs you use to organise your identity. They are the inner rules or beliefs that define how you see yourself and your relationship to the world. The Internal assumptions often associated with the Achieving dimension include:
I have a purpose and mission in life
People want to fulfill their purpose and mission in life
I am responsible for the results in my life
I am interdependent with all of life
It is safe to tell the truth without adding emotional judgements and blame
I can choose my attitude towards events
Personal worth is inherent and independent of circumstances
Behaviours
Behaviors are the external expression of your Internal Assumptions. The general behaviors associated with the Achieving dimension include:
Taking initiative
Setting high standards for achievement
Learning from experience
Viewing situations through a positive/optimistic filter
Focusing persistently on creating what matters most
Acting as a role model
Striking a balance between being active and being receptive
Offering your original perspectives
Initiating projects
Reaching for high goals
Speaking openly in the presence of “authorities”
Listening and learning from subordinates
If you score low in Achieving (33 or below):
Scoring low on Achieving can be a problem. This dimension contains many of the leadership competencies that are traditionally thought of as leadership. These are the competencies that make things happen. Also, look at the Reactive dimensions for internal assumptions that may be blocking your full creative capability.
Scoring low suggests that you are underperforming. The behaviors associated with low scores in the Achieving dimension include:
Making excuses for not meeting goals or commitments
Waiting for others to set direction or make decisions before acting
Doing what you know is easily accomplished
Striving to prove yourself through achievements
Avoiding the risk of big challenges
Blaming others for your problems—expecting them to do most of the changing
Defending yourself, being slow to admit mistakes, ignoring failures and shortcomings
Playing out various roles in your life rather than acting from your authentic center
Low scores on Achieving can be related to low scores all across the Creative sphere. All of the competencies that comprise effective leadership spring from an internal source of self-knowledge.
Consequently, low scores on this dimension may well show up as low scores on any of the Creative Competencies. In addition, low scores on this scale are correlated with high scores in the Reactive sphere. High Reactive scores tend to block or limit your capability to discover and lead from your own inner vitality, integrity, and vision.
These behaviours come from an internal insecurity such as not feeling worthy or loved, feeling rejected, not feeling needed, feeling alone and unprotected.
Your own leadership development: what now?
Hopefully, by now you're at least curious enough to explore other, additional, ways of being a people leader. So, how does one let go and help the team develop before you find yourself in a place where people tolerate your leadership style because yes, you do achieve results, but at comes at high costs to your team? Here are a few points to consider - see how you are in each of them.
Awareness: understanding, that there are ways for you to be a more effective leader.
Acceptance: that learning the next level of leadership can be frustrating and confusing, but it is what you're choosing to do.
Normalisation: if Michael Jordan's leadership journey isn't a good example for you - I wish you would've seen how often I work with leaders in our coaching. Clients who name delegation, time management, emotional intelligence, burnout, collaboration or developing a team as development areas for themselves, especially when they've just been promoted and have become a metaphoric team coach and should no longer be playing on the field with the rest of the team. There are many people around the world working on finding ways to let go and still achieve, sustainably, at this very moment.
Inspiration: ask people you respect about how they developed these more advanced ways to achieve together with their teams. Just note that for some, Controlling is not as much of an issue and they may have instead struggled with their Complying (previous post) or Protective tendencies (next post). So ask those who worked on their Controlling tendencies.
Do the work: read, reflect, ask, talk, journal, practice, have accountability partners, speak with mentors, work with a coach - there are many ways through which you can develop these muscles. All of these could help you update your beliefs on what is effective leadership and for you to gather new experiences that will help confirm the usefulness of these new beliefs.
Questions to help you move towards Creative on the Leadership Circle Profile:
Ask the below questions and work on getting your answers to them (Creative Competencies in parentheses):
How is my team / our department / our organization performing? (Systems Awareness, Achieving)
What is the culture of my team? (Systems Awareness, Relating)
Ask your team - what is it like to work with you? (Authenticity, Self-Awareness)
What kind of leader do I want to be? (Self-Awareness, Achieving, Purposeful & Visionary)
What is my vision for my team, for our organization? (Achieving: Purposeful & Visionary)
Ask your team: what do they need from you in order to get the job done on time and to the desired standard? (Relating: Collaborator, Mentoring & Development, Achieving: Achieves Results)
Come up with your own questions to help you find ways to operate from Creative Competencies.
For higher accuracy using the Leadership Circle Profile for your own development, consider:
Completing the free LCP Self-Assessment on Leadership Circle's' website.
Getting in touch if you want a full 360 LCP+debrief (I'm a certified LCP practitioner).
Coming up next
Leadership development for brainy and critical leaders: how to help your team flourish, rather than be diminished, by your thinking style (or how not to feel alone in this world)
Inspiring leadership series:
Intro to the Leadership Circle Profile: a map for your leadership development
Definitions of 29 Reactive and Creative leadership dimensions of the LCP
Leadership development for relators: how to stop pleasing and start achieving, together
Leadership development for high achievers (this post)
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Footnotes:
About Anton
A professional coach with a master’s in psychology, I specialise in working with leaders and creatives wanting to do better for themselves and their world.