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They’re called “control freaks.” If you find yourself in close proximity to one for any length of time, you have my condolences. They can make one’s life exceedingly unpleasant. Samuel discovered this on the job in the form of his new manager. She ruled the department where he toiled with a suffocating mental grip. Every scrap of work he produced endured her meticulous scrutiny. Each decision, no matter how trivial, had to pass muster with her first. Consequently, much of his time and energy was consumed with pandering to her “Do it my way!” obsession, rather than optimizing his performance on the job.
“Frankly, it’s insulting. Obviously, she doesn’t respect me as a professional. She treats me like a child, an errand boy,” he complained.
Most folks who live or work with a control freak suffer considerable frustration, resentment and stress. Some find the situation unbearable, leading to interpersonal alienation, workplace turnover and broken relationships. What makes control freaks tick? Primarily, their malady pivots on the issue of trust. They simply don’t trust people to do the right things or perform to their standards, whether at work or home. Their near-maniacal insistence on being in charge of their world and everyone in it demonstrates how little confidence they have in the judgment and competencies of others.
Granted, trust must be earned, and there are some family members and colleagues who, if left to their own devices, will make a spectacular mess of things. However, control freaks won’t loosen their behavioral grip on anyone, even those with a track record of common sense, sound decision-making and tangible achievement. One could construe this as arrogance, as if the control freak believes they are simply better than everyone else. More often, however, it arises from risk aversion; a fear that something bad will happen if they are not tightly gripping the steering wheel, so to speak.
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Mistrust
On a macro level, many of these folks not only mistrust people, they also harbor a deep-seated wariness toward life itself. They perceive the world as a chaotic and even frightening place that must be mastered and bent to one’s will. Consequently, they find the idea of going with the flow both anxiety-provoking and patently absurd. Their “never let go of the steering wheel” philosophy is intermittently reinforced by the fact that, in certain situations, it proves entirely correct. There are people who, absent direction, will under-perform and make frequent errors. By tightly managing these folks, control freaks prove to themselves they can save the day. Meaning, there’s a method to their madness. However, what they lack is the ability to discriminate between those scenarios and persons that require their hands-on involvement and those that do not.
Working with one of these folks can be taxing, but living with one is often downright oppressive. There is a toxic inequality in such relationships, creating a conundrum in which the control maniac is constantly asserting their correctness and authority, leaving the other person to chafe under this domineering do-it-my-way influence.
At its worst, this degrades into a kind of psychological slavery in which the controlling party attempts to dictate most aspects of the other person’s life and expects total compliance. When the other individual fails to comply or even rebels, emotional and physical abuse may follow.
If you work or live with such a soul, the prospects for improvement, while not grim, are often limited. By nature, control freaks usually lack behavioral flexibility and are reticent to change, mostly because they possess little self-awareness. When respectfully confronted with how they come across and the impact their iron-grip modus operandi has on others, some make lasting changes for the better. However, many others improve for a short time, only to backslide. Convinced as the bulk of them are that they know what is best in most, if not all matters, they can be a tough nut to crack.
While not always feasible, sometimes the only solution is to minimize contact or simply walk away. When it comes to control freaks, avoidance is a beneficial defense mechanism.
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