In high-performing environments, control is rarely questioned. In fact, it’s often quietly praised.
The people who are most controlled are frequently described as diligent, reliable, detail-oriented, or as having “strong ownership.” They anticipate problems, double-check decisions, and rarely let things slip. From the outside, this looks like competence, but beneath the surface, control is often not a performance strategy at all. It’s a nervous system response.
And if leaders don’t understand that distinction, they risk rewarding behaviours that quietly undermine confidence, learning, and long-term performance.
Why control emerges in capable people
There’s a common assumption in organisations that when people feel unsure or underconfident, they disengage. In reality, the opposite is usually true. Capable people don’t withdraw – they tighten.
When roles are ambiguous, feedback is inconsistent, or expectations feel unspoken, people don’t stop caring. They become more vigilant. More careful. More controlled. Not because they lack confidence, but because uncertainty is interpreted as risk.
The nervous system’s primary job is to keep us safe. When clarity or predictability is missing, it compensates by increasing control. That control might show up as over-preparation, excessive checking, reluctance to delegate, or a need to manage outcomes more closely than necessary.
From a leadership perspective, this often looks like commitment. Internally, it’s driven by anxiety – not fear in the dramatic sense, but the quieter professional anxiety of not wanting to be exposed, judged, or seen as getting it wrong.
Control as a socially rewarded coping strategy
One of the reasons control is so hard to address in organisations is that it is socially reinforced. Controlled behaviour tends to produce short-term results. It reduces visible mistakes. It creates the impression of reliability. It often aligns neatly with cultures that value pace, precision, and accountability.
As a result, control becomes conflated with competence.
But when a behaviour is rewarded without understanding what’s driving it, organisations end up amplifying the coping strategy rather than addressing the underlying need. This is especially common in early-career and high-potential talent, where individuals are still learning the implicit rules of the system and are acutely sensitive to evaluation.
Where perfectionism quietly enters the system
One of the most common and least questioned expressions of control at work is perfectionism.
Perfectionism is easy to misread as ambition or high standards. After all, perfectionistic employees often care deeply about quality and outcomes. Psychologically, however, perfectionism is rarely about excellence, it’s about managing risk by reducing visibility.
Perfectionistic behaviour often emerges when people don’t feel safe being seen mid-process. Instead of learning in public, they wait until work feels polished. Instead of speaking up tentatively, they stay silent until they’re sure. Instead of delegating, they redo or retain tasks to avoid potential failure.
The standards themselves don’t change. But the grip tightens.
From a development perspective, this is crucial. Perfectionism doesn’t signal a lack of ability. It signals a lack of psychological safety around learning, uncertainty, or exposure.
The hidden organisational cost of control-based coping
When control is mistaken for competence, teams don’t fail loudly, they stagnate quietly.
At first, everything appears to function: deadlines are met, errors are minimised and performance looks stable, but over time, the cost becomes visible in subtler ways:
- Decision-making slows because people wait for certainty that never fully arrives.
- Innovation decreases because risk feels personally expensive.
- Learning is constrained because mistakes feel unsafe.
While teams appear engaged, they’re cautious and caution limits growth.
Over the longer term, this often shows up as burnout in conscientious employees, reduced confidence in emerging talent, and an over-reliance on reassurance or approval from leaders. People stop stretching not because they don’t care, but because the cost of getting it wrong feels too high.
Why this is not a mindset problem
Control-based behaviour is often framed as a mindset issue: people are told to “be more confident,” “let go,” or “stop overthinking,” but control is rarely something people can simply think their way out of because it isn’t primarily cognitive – it’s physiological.
When the nervous system doesn’t feel safe, asking for behavioural change without addressing safety simply adds another layer of pressure. People may comply outwardly, but internally the tension remains.
This is why traditional skills training often fails to shift these patterns. You can teach communication techniques, decision frameworks, or leadership models, but if people don’t feel safe enough to apply them imperfectly, behaviour won’t change in any lasting way.
What leaders can do differently
Reducing control doesn’t mean lowering standards or tolerating poor performance, it means changing where safety comes from. High-performing cultures don’t eliminate uncertainty, they normalise it.
Leaders play a critical role by modelling thinking out loud, separating learning moments from evaluation moments, and showing that not knowing is part of growth rather than a threat to credibility.
When leaders reward progress as well as outcomes, and curiosity as well as certainty, people loosen their grip naturally. Not because they’re told to, but because the environment no longer requires such tight self-protection.
Confidence doesn’t grow from certainty, it grows from safety.
The real development opportunity
When control is understood as a signal rather than a flaw, development becomes far more effective so instead of trying to remove behaviours, leaders can address what those behaviours are protecting.
Teams don’t become sloppy when control loosens. They become more decisive, more resilient, and more adaptable under pressure. They learn faster because mistakes are metabolised rather than hidden. And confidence grows because people are allowed to be competent and human at the same time.
This is where psychologically grounded development has its greatest impact – not by fixing individuals, but by creating conditions where confidence can grow without gripping.
A practical next step
If you’re noticing patterns of control or perfectionism in early-career or high-potential talent, the most effective starting point isn’t more skills training, it’s awareness.
This is the kind of work I do with organisations when supporting confidence, psychological safety, and early-career development.