3 Signs You’re Trying to Control Others and How It’s Hurting You as a Humanitarian and International Development Leader

Do you ever say “yes” just to be seen as helpful — even when you’re drowning in work?

In this episode, you will learn the subtle yet powerful ways humanitarian and development leaders unconsciously try to control others — and how it leads to burnout, miscommunication, and weakened team dynamics.

In this episode you'll discover:

• Hidden signs you’re trying to influence others’ thoughts, emotions, or behaviors

• Learn how people-pleasing and micromanaging quietly disempower your team

• Walk away with powerful mindset shifts to free yourself from unnecessary stress and lead more authentically

Press play now to uncover how letting go of control can help you reclaim time, reduce stress, and become the leader your team truly needs.

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Want to know how to lead better?  It starts by understanding your leadership style.   To find out yours, take my free quiz “What Is Your Leadership Style” - you’ll immediately find out your default style, how it may be impacting your team and a few practical ways to become an even better leader.  Just click on the link fill out your quiz and click submit.

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

How you may be trying to control others without even knowing it and how it negatively impacts you and your team in today's episode.

Welcome to the Modern Humanitarian and Development Leader podcast. The podcast helping humanitarian and development supervisors make a greater impact by taking control of your time, leading more inclusively and empowering your team all the while avoiding stress. Burnout and overwhelm. I'm your host, leadership coach and former aid worker, Torrey peace. Are you ready? Let's get started.

Hello my aspiring modern humanitarian development leader. I hope you're having a wonderful week. In today's episode, you're going to discover symptoms of trying to control others in [00:01:00] ways that you may not even be aware of, why we tend to try and control others and finally, how to stop creating unnecessary stress and start focusing on what you can control.

When we talk about controlling others, it sounds so forceful. It sounds so like a physical control or like manipulative, but it doesn't have to be overtly obvious.

So when I talk about controlling others as a leader, that usually refers to our team, but we also do this in many other ways as well. So here are some symptoms that we are trying to control others. Number one, we do things or make decisions because we want a certain response from someone else.

So basically we want to influence the way they see us, their opinion of us. So a great example of this as a leader is maybe saying [00:02:00] yes to extra work that you cannot handle when your supervisor asks you for help. Or even somebody in the regional level or HQ level, so whoever's maybe more senior, and they ask you for help and you don't wanna be seen as unhelpful.

You also want them to see you as helpful. You want them to see you as a team player, and so you say, yes. But you're doing it with the intention or with the hope that they will look more favorably on you or they will see you in a certain way.

Number two, people pleasing, doing things not because we want to, but because we hope they will make the other person feel better or once again, see us in a different light.

I love how one of my mentor coaches explains this and she says that people pleasing is lying to [00:03:00] ourselves and is lying to others. And basically when we are people pleasing, it means that we are saying yes, but we don't want to actually do the thing. Similar example with a supervisor asking for help and us saying yes, that is also a form of people pleasing.

But it could also be something like when you're meeting with, let's say, a government leader and you want them to look at you favorably, and they mention that they really like agriculture or they, they really love to farm, or something like that, and you say the same that you also like to farm, even though maybe you don't do any farming, and you're doing it just so that you can influence their way of seeing you. You want them to see you in a positive way.

Number three, not being our authentic selves out of fear of changing others' [00:04:00] opinions of us. So we're holding back from fully expressing ourselves. This could be if you're in a meeting and maybe you hold back your opinion or something that might potentially be valuable to add to what everyone else is saying, simply because you don't wanna be seen as, ignorant.

You want to influence others' opinions of how you come across of that you are professional, that you know what you're doing, and also that you're not the squeaky wheel or the loudest person. It not being authentic. If you were being authentic, you would actually speak up because you actually have something to say, but you're not doing that because you are wanting to have people see you in a certain way, and so it makes you hold back.

And then number four, the fourth symptom that [00:05:00] shows we are trying to control others is micromanagement. And this is one I think we don't even realize we're doing sometimes, but when we're telling our team what to do when we're giving them advice all the time, and it doesn't even have to be the kind of micromanagement where we're constantly following up and making sure we know everything that's happening, but even just in terms of telling others what to do, we're trying to influence their behavior.

We want a certain outcome. We want a successful outcome of our project, for example. And so we are trying to control the way they show up or what they do in order to get that outcome. Now the problem is the way that we try to control others, we try to control how they think about us, how they feel about us, and how they behave toward us.

[00:06:00] But the interesting thing is these things are actually impossible. We cannot control how someone thinks about us. We cannot control how someone feels about us and we can cannot control how they act . We think we can control these things, but we really can't. We can't control other people's minds.

We can't control other people's emotions. We can't control other people's actions. At the end of the day, we can't. And so when we're focused on trying to do those things, which is what I'm talking about today, then we are actually disempowering ourselves and disempowering them when we focus on things outside of our control.

Like things that we cannot control at all, and we're acting in a way simply to get them to respond or to see us in a more positive way. This [00:07:00] is basically giving away our own personal power because our own satisfaction, our own self-worth, our own image of ourselves is based on their thoughts, feelings, and actions towards us.

And these are things that we cannot control even though we would like to. So how much freedom would you have if you could let go of having to control others? If you could let go of trying to do things just to make people feel better or people pleasing? Or you could be more of your authentic self and speak up more in meetings? Or instead of telling others what to do, like your team to trust that they can find their own way?

How much freedom would that give you of [00:08:00] letting go of the need for all of this control?

So instead of trying to control things that are not within our control, that is other people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors towards us, we can focus on what is within our control. We can show up and be the best version of ourselves.

If we show up more authentically, if we let go of trying to control what others think of us and instead focus on becoming better leaders, then the way we show up will naturally be in a way that people will probably respond more positively to.

So letting go of trying to get people to think or feel about you in a certain way, or trying to get them to behave in a certain way and instead focusing on your own thoughts, feelings, and emotions. And [00:09:00] by the way, these are all things that we cover in my six week course "becoming the modern humanitarian and development leader", we focus on how do we look at what is within our control and focus on that, but also how do we look at the thoughts, feelings, and actions which are leading to our current day of results? And how can we take more responsibility for our own thoughts, feelings, and actions, and let go of having to control the thoughts, feelings, and actions of others? So people are going to think whatever they think they're going to feel how they feel. There's nothing we can do to control that. And when we're trying to control others, many times it comes from a more negative emotion like worry, or fear or frustration.

And when we act from a negative emotion like that, then we will have [00:10:00] very different results. Our behavior will be quite different when we act from fear, worry, or frustration than if we focus instead on what we do have control over from a place of wanting to be the best version of ourselves. For example, when I focus on wanting to be the best version of myself, my feeling is a much more positive one.

It's motivated, excited, it might be joyful or grateful, and in this way, I'm going to show up and act differently than if I was trying to control someone else acting from a place of fear or worry or frustration about what they might think of me.

It's a lot less stressful when you don't feel like you have to please others and always care about what they think about you. Always be wondering what they think about you, because most of the time too, I find when I try to [00:11:00] guess what others are thinking, a lot of times I'm wrong.

This is also in line with the Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins, which if you have not heard about, I recommend you check it out. Her whole premise of the book that she's written is to let people think and feel how they're going to about you. Just let them, and you letting go of trying to control what they think and feel, and instead focusing on yourself and what you can control, which is how you think and feel about yourself.

You know, a lot of times we look for ways of feeling more worthy, ways of feeling more successful from external things like, for example, from validation from others, positive feedback. But until we actually believe those things and we work on our internal selves, our own thoughts, feelings, and emotions and, [00:12:00] and actions, then we actually will never feel fully successful or validated or worthy because this is something that has to be worked on internally. And so we can't manipulate others and try to control others to respond a certain way to us so that we feel more worthy. That's a very temporary way of feeling worthy.

Here are three steps that you can do to stop controlling others and start focusing on what you can control. So the first one is just awareness. Observing yourself and how often you are doing something because you're trying to influence others' feelings or thoughts about you.

Even outside of work environment, I find myself sometimes trying to influence others the way they feel about me, the way I say yes to certain things that I wouldn't normally.

I can feel the difference when I'm [00:13:00] trying to manipulate those around me to respond a certain way toward me or feel a certain way toward me or versus when I just show up as my authentic self. I let go of all of that and I just allow others to be, and it's so much more freeing and such a, a more pleasurable way to operate in the world.

So the first one is awareness. Being observant of when you are trying to control others. This isn't to say that you don't wanna try to make other people happy or whatever, but just be curious about your intentions behind that. Is it because you want to feel better about yourself? Or is it because you genuinely do want them to feel happy?

Number two, curiosity. Why do you do it? What are you hoping to gain? What is your motive behind trying to influence others' thoughts, feelings, and actions towards you? For example, [00:14:00] maybe you're hoping to gain praise from someone, or recognition or acceptance.

Just get to know what is the need that you want met and how might you meet that need in another way.

And then number three, remind yourself it is impossible to control others' thoughts and feelings and behavior. This is an illusion. It's just not true. It's just not something that's within our control.

Instead on what is within your control, which is your own thoughts, feelings, and actions. And ideally, you also have a vision of the type of person you're becoming, like in my course we do a leadership impact goal. What is the type of leader you want to be? That can help as well, because then you can be clear on focusing on the thoughts, feelings, and actions that require yourself to move in that direction rather than [00:15:00] trying to focus on controlling everyone else's thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

So my challenge for you this week is to notice whenever you are trying to control others in some way when you're doing something simply to get a response, a certain emotional reaction or certain response from someone else, and be curious about why that is.

What is it that you're hoping to gain from that, if anything? And then finally, reminding yourself it's not possible to control others. And how do you instead what we have control over, which is ourselves. Until next week, keep evolving. Bye for now.

Are you the type of leader that tells others what to do or to let them figure it out for themselves? Understanding your leadership style is a first step to deciding what's working for you and what's [00:16:00] not. To find out your leadership style, take my free quiz. What is your leadership style? You'll immediately find out your default style, how it may be impacting your team, and a few practical ways to become an even better leader.

Just click on the link in the show notes, www.aidforaidworkers.com/quiz. Fill out your quiz and click submit. So what are you waiting for? Go to www.aidforaidworkers.com/quiz and discover your leadership style now. Your team will Thank you for it.