The Pressure Zone Series — Control Zone

Break the grip of fear to build trust on your sales floor.

I was a young store manager, and had recently been promoted into the Store Manager position. I had three assistant managers I really didn’t know well yet, and they all had more experience than I did. One of them had been around a long time, and we did not exactly see eye to eye. He seemed to think of me as the “too young, thinks he’s too smart” type.

Soon after I started in this position, we had a district manager visit. It did not go well. I was frustrated and upset, and if you were watching, you would have seen it. I had invited that assistant manager to walk along with us. It was unusual for him, but felt right to do since he had been part of the store for a long time. He had not been part of those visits before and even mentioned that to us.

Long story, short…after it was over, we had a conversation and debrief. He got to see how much I cared. He saw how much I was carrying on my shoulders. And something shifted between us. He offered to step up. He said he would work harder, that he felt like he owed more to the team and to me. More importantly, I heard it. I accepted it. I started to let go.

It sounds simple. It was not. But that conversation changed how I led.

Here is what I know now that I did not know then: I was afraid. I was a new manager who thought he knew what the job required, and then discovered there was a heck of a lot more to it than I had understood or anticipated. And when leaders are afraid, the instinct is to grab the reins and hold on.

That is the Control Zone.

What it looks like

When a leader is deep in the Control Zone, what you see is pure activity. Doing, doing, doing. There is not a lot of standing back and observing. Not a lot of shoulder-to-shoulder conversation. A lot of individual effort, and not much delegation.

When a team member comes with a question or a problem, the manager does not coach them through it and send them off. The manager stops what they are doing and goes and handles it themselves, or at least does it alongside them. Maybe it looks like teaching. Maybe it looks like training. But when you step back and really watch, you see a leader who just cannot let go.

At the multi-unit level, it looks a little different. The district manager starts directing the store team directly, bypassing the store manager. They pull out of their actual role and start working like a super store manager.

The giveaway at every level of leadership: a lot of telling, and not much asking. Curiosity disappears when you are deep in the Control Zone.

What it costs the team

Here is what happens to the people around a controlling leader over time: they stop trying. It is rare for a team to stop caring (especially if they once did) for no reason. If they have learned the manager is going to take over anyway, then why bother? Why try something new when mistakes are not really tolerated? The team stops feeling empowered. They stop developing new skills. And they stop bringing the real stuff forward, which means the leader only hears about issues when they have already become something much bigger.

I would bet you have seen this, been a part of it at some point, or even have had it happen to you in your leadership role. It is more common than any of us would care to admit. The Control Zone creates a silence gap. And by the time most leaders realize the gap exists, it has been there for a while.

The root of it

The Control Zone is almost always driven by (usually subconscious) fear. Fear that if you let go, things will not meet the standard. Fear that the district manager will walk in and find it wrong. Fear that no one else can do it as well as you can right now.

Few of the leaders stuck in this zone want to be there. Most do not even realize they are there. They would say they don’t want to be there if someone was explaining it to them. What they’re saying to themselves sounds more like: I don’t understand why my team can’t handle this. I feel like I have to do everything myself.

And it is not just a store manager problem. A district or even a regional level manager walking a store and suddenly giving direction to the team instead of observing and coaching is in the Control Zone too. Being so close to the action that you cannot actually see what is going on around you happens at every level.

How to break out

The shift out of the Control Zone starts with one thing: curiosity. Instead of telling, start asking. Instead of jumping in, start stepping back. The questions that break the pattern can be as simple as:

• What do you think?

• Tell me more about what is going on.

• Do you have a solution in mind you would like to try?

• What approach would you take?

When you stop providing all the answers and start asking for others, two things happen. The team starts to feel trusted. And you start to see what they are actually capable of when you get out of the way.

The assistant manager I mentioned earlier was not a particularly strong leader. But when I let him in, when I stopped carrying everything alone and accepted his offer to do more, he stepped up. The team saw it. I saw it. And it changed the dynamic in ways that took the weight off everyone.

The Control Zone feels like you’re working hard. It feels like you’re getting things done. Initially, it feels effective. But it is leadership without leverage, and it is unsustainable. The moment you start letting go, you will find out what both you and your team are really capable of.

Next: The Fire Zone — and why it often starts right here.

Have you found yourself in the Control Zone before? What lead you there? How did you find your way out?

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