"Control Vs Influence"

Its been a long time since I have not been in touch with this place.... either I was very busy or I had no subject to ponder upon...I'd like to believe the first one :-)

Anyway let's start with this one....

At many times, leaders have the misconception that their job is to manage people or supervise people. They miss the fact that machines can be managed, people can't. Recently, I learnt one of the best management concepts I could learn ever and that was "Control Vs Influence".

The first thought which comes to our mind when we think about leadership is that leaders have more control. We tend to think that people, above in the hierarchy, have more control than the people lower in the hierarchy. However, what I learnt and found true, was far different from this.

When we talk about 'control', we tend to forget that there is nothing in the world we can control but the self. If you see the Circle of Control, you'll realize it always remains constant, because its only you who you can control regardless of the position you possess in the hierarchy. Having said that, as you move further in the hierarchy, your decisions and policies influence all the people which are lower in the hierarchy and that means the area of your Circle of Influence expands with the responsibilities you take in your hand while, at the same time, area of your Circle of Concern (things which are caused by external activities) diminishes.

So question is, with the the same Circle of Control, how a CEO manage to expand his/her circle of influence. Answer lies in the intensity of the Control.

Although like a Team Leader, who leads a team of 15-20 people,a CEO also possesses the same area in his/her 'Circle of Control', CEO's Circle of Control is more intense than team leader's. As one grow in the hierarchy, one starts having more control on self and this results into the more influence on others. And as you have more influence on others, you have lesser things of concern.

In nutshell, we do not need to grow our circle of control because that is anyway impossible, we just need to make this circle more intense and that means 'better control on self' to grow our circle of influence and to become a better leader.