The illusion of control

There’s a common temptation in horsemanship: when you don’t have enough control, reach for a bigger bit. (Let’s face it, it’s why all of us horse girls become bit hoarders.) 

More leverage. More stopping power. A stronger response. 

Over the past two years, through time spent with our producer board network, conversations with employees across the organization, and even my own experience serving in more direct leadership roles, I’ve started to notice a common thread around control—or at least the perception of it. 

Humans are obsessed with it. 

We like knowing what is going to happen. We like knowing who is responsible. We like processes, guardrails, approval structures, plans, and predictability. And when something starts to feel uncertain, our instinct is often to tighten our grip. 

But I’ve started to wonder whether some of the things we call control are really just attempts to make uncertainty feel more comfortable. 

And more importantly: 

At what point does our desire for control begin to limit our ability to influence? 

Historically, many organizations operated within very top-down, hierarchical structures. Authority lines were clear. Decisions were direct. Roles were defined. That beloved chain of command was followed and adhered to. 

Modern business models are much more complex by design. 

From experience, I know transformations of organizational hierarchy and design unfortunately often fail before they succeed—and I could probably write an entire book on the factors that contribute to that. Many already have. 

Some of the biggest and most consistent barriers I’ve observed are prior generational norms, ever-changing responsibilities, the feeling of lost autonomy, and my personal favorite: “Well, back in the day, we used to do it this way.” 

There is one important distinction among all of these: 

They are learned behaviors and mindsets. 

The term organizational psychology is sometimes perceived (there’s that mindset thing again) as a little fluffy, less important, or too theoretical when compared with bottom lines, profit, and business performance. 

But organizations don’t make decisions. People do. 

And people bring their experiences, assumptions, habits, fears, incentives, relationships, and learned behaviors with them when they walk into the room. 

We can redraw an org chart overnight. We can change decision rights. We can eliminate layers. We can create a matrix structure. We can announce a transformation. 

But changing the structure doesn’t automatically change the behaviors people learned inside the old one. 

Someone who spent 20 years being rewarded for owning decisions doesn’t suddenly feel comfortable influencing decisions they no longer own. 

Someone who spent 15 years being told to run everything up the chain doesn’t suddenly feel empowered because a PowerPoint says they’re empowered. 

A leader can lose formal authority without immediately understanding how to replace it with influence. 

Authority is granted by structure. Influence is earned through relationships, credibility, clarity, and trust—and honestly, a whole lot of practice. 

And here’s where I think we get it wrong: 

Control is only one lever. Influence has many. 

Control is attractive because it is tangible. If I own the decision, approve the expenditure, manage the person, set the process, or have the final say, I can point to exactly where my authority lives. 

Influence is harder to see. 

It lives in our relationships, credibility, and established trust. It shows up in how we share our expertise and how we communicate. It’s built through our reputation, our access to information, the questions we ask, the way we frame a problem, and our ability to connect people and ideas. 

These are all muscles that have to be strengthened if we want to become more effective at influencing. 

And, perhaps most importantly, influence lives in whether people value our perspective enough to seek it out when they don’t have to. 

That makes influence feel less certain than control. 

But it also makes it far more expansive. 

Control has boundaries. Influence doesn’t have to. 

Formal control almost always comes with a boundary. 

I control this budget. 
I lead this team. 
I own this decision. 
I approve this process. 

Step outside of that boundary and the authority attached to the role begins to disappear. 

Influence works differently. 

You can influence a decision you don’t own. You can shape the thinking of a team you don’t lead. You can change the direction of a conversation without being the highest-ranking person in the room. You can ask a question that causes someone to reconsider an assumption long after the meeting ends. 

And you can build relationships and credibility that carry your influence far beyond the boundaries of your job description. 

That’s the paradox: the thing that feels less powerful may actually give us greater reach. 

The illusion is believing that control guarantees the outcome. 

Maybe that’s why I keep coming back to the word illusion. Because even when we technically have control, how much do we really control? 

A leader can mandate a process but can’t mandate that people believe in it. 

A board can approve a strategy but can’t control whether people understand it. 

An organizational chart can establish decision rights but can’t create trust. 

A policy can dictate behavior, but it can’t guarantee judgment. 

A leader can require compliance while they’re in the room. 

They cannot control every decision that is made after they leave it. 

Control can shape the environment. It cannot guarantee the outcome. 

And that’s where influence becomes so powerful. 

Influence is what remains when the authority is not present. 

Control asks, “What can I make happen?” 

Influence asks, “What can I help make possible?” 

The first relies heavily on authority. The second can draw from credibility, relationships, expertise, trust, communication, curiosity, reputation, and shared purpose. 

One lever versus many. 

So, maybe we don’t need a bigger bit. We just need a different approach. 

The irony is that our instinct when we feel control slipping away is often to reach for more of it. 

Another approval. Another rule. Another reporting requirement. Another layer of oversight. 

More leverage. 

Sometimes that’s necessary. 

But sometimes we’re reaching for a bigger bit when we should be developing a better feel. 

Not because control has no place in leadership. It absolutely does. 

But because control is only one tool available to us—and perhaps not even the most powerful one. 

The leaders I’ve found most influential aren’t necessarily the people with the greatest authority. They’re often the people whose judgment others trust, whose questions change the conversation, and whose perspective continues to shape decisions after they’ve left the room. 

And maybe that’s the real illusion of control: 

We spend so much energy trying to hold onto the power we can see that we underestimate the power we can’t. 

So maybe the challenge isn’t to give up control. It’s to recognize when we’re relying on it simply because it’s the lever we know how to pull—the muscle we know how to flex. 

Here are a few things to think about: 

• Where are you holding onto control because it feels safer than influence? 

• What might become possible if you stopped asking, “How do I control this?” and started asking, “How can I influence it?” 

And perhaps the hardest question: 

• If your authority disappeared tomorrow, how much influence would you have left? 

Because maybe the true measure of leadership isn’t what happens when you have control—it’s what happens when you don’t. 

—HL 
The Strategic Cowgirl