Attended a conference on ‘Coaching for Organization Development‘ in Delhi recently….my idea was also to get a chance to visit the charming India Habitat centre:-)
One of the speakers there, Pramath Raj Sinha,(Founding Dean ISB) talked about the failure of professionals in family owned businesses. He quizzed the audience for reasons. The white board soon flooded with answers which I felt could be bucketed under two heads...
1. Transparency or rather lack of it
2. Control or rather too much of it
Coincidentally, the same day Corporate Dossier carried an article on ‘Learn to let go’. And surprisingly the day ended with a meeting where the client was battling over transparency and control issues….!
Not that being amidst corporate professionals for past 15 years, I am unaware of “How much is too much control”, but its one of those mornings that I just spent some time reflecting on it…
Lack of transparency leads to a control freaky culture in organizations. It requires not good but great leadership to steer clear of it.
Kavil Ramachandran in his article says, “Leaders have to identify talent and groom them to share responsibilities so that they themselves can move on to take greater responsibilities.’
They have to feel confident about two things - 1.letting someone do what they have always been doing and 2. feeling comfortable about doing new things.
Being a mother, I always draw analogies from my parenting experience. This battle of control starts pretty much from childhood. The lack of trust or over protectiveness or the first time perfection mania holds us from passing control to our children.
This often leads to power struggle between a parent and child. Most parents consider their grown-ups as children which causes friction. Similarly most control freak leaders if they may be called so consider their managers to be still learning.
Do what is good for your child but remember a parent is not the only one to value-add forever. Children learn to overcome challenges successfully. In organizations too, there are new challenges but the premise remains the same – A CEO or CXO may not be the only one to add value to the strategy and governance of the organization.
Let go...You and your company will go farther!
