Leadership Strategies: Power vs. Control

Unlike many young people of my generation (I will turn 30 next month) I don't have a single tattoo. My reasoning is that my ideas, beliefs, and philosophies undergo constant evaluation & evolution, and tattoos, more/less, are permanent.

An emerging perspective that I've developed regarding people in positions of leadership is a subtle yet pronounced distinction between two types of success and the role specific behavior plays in that success.

One type of success relies primarily on control. These are your micro-managers, your domineering bosses, the person at the office or job site who explicitly instructs, with fine detail, each aspect of the job you are expected to perform. These bosses have likely worked their way up the ranks, previously working that job that you currently hold, or have seen first-hand other individuals make mistakes that they, the boss, are hellbent on avoiding any repetition of. They fundamentally believe that the actions of people who report to them are both within their reach and quantifiable. While not often widely loved for their roles within an organization, control-oriented individuals very often produce quality results.

Another type of success relies on power. These are your charismatic thought-leaders, the people within the organization that many people revere but who are often hated by a concentrated few because they have a tendency to ascend quickly or enter said organization without equal experience or education. Power-brokers tend to rise quickly because they rely on social connections and favor banking (also called parallel currencies), to build collaborative and strategic partnerships. Those relationships earn difficult to quantify social value but are often redeemed for powerful positions, influence, or access. Influence is key to power-oriented leaders because they usually believe that, fundamentally, people are beyond their control, unless their favor is won over, unless they have some "skin in the game." Power players often display a different managerial philosophy, believing that people function more effectively without hands-on direction.

In the last month two extremely well written articles have been published that illuminate with expert specificity these different philosophies.

The first, published in the Wall Street Journal, begins with a list by a Chinese-American writer on the great many 'normal' activities that she did not allow her children to do, very explicit control strategies that foster individual excellence and parentally-spurred discipline. The list of forbidden activities includes:

• attend a sleepover

• have a playdate

• be in a school play

• complain about not being in a school play

• watch TV or play computer games

• choose their own extracurricular activities

• get any grade less than an A

• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama

• play any instrument other than the piano or violin

• not play the piano or violin.

The second, published in the New Yorker magazine does an excellent job itemizing the trappings of what writer David Brooks calls, The Composure Class. In his article entitled Social Animal, Brooks writes:

The traits that do make a difference are poorly understood, and can’t be taught in a classroom, no matter what the tuition: the ability to understand and inspire people; to read situations and discern the underlying patterns; to build trusting relationships; to recognize and correct one’s shortcomings; to imagine alternate futures.

I can say that without hesitation, my own guiding philosophies fall much closer in the spectrum toward favoring the importance of power, over control. In my opinion and experience, to get the best out of people, you need to allow them to make their own choices, which may in fact include making their own mistakes. Providing for the possibility of individual freedom, coupled with hierarchical responsibility.

For many of my business practices that demands competition, I look to strategists like Sun Tzu and his treatise The Art of War. However, much of today's world demands not competition from its ambitious achievers, but expertly executed cooperation.


Though, as I've previously stated, my guiding philosophies do change over time (I am fundamentally and inherently pragmatic, i.e. stick with what works), cooperative influence based on power seems, at this time, the best fit for fostering success. I am not ready to get the word 'power' tattooed anywhere on my body, but I do recognize it importance and will use its tactics so long as they serve me, and the organizations and social networks with whom I associate, well.