A very common behaviour among many managers in the corporate world is to do all the crazy things to assert their need for power and control.  Such scenarios abound the corporate environment. Such behaviours are cancerous and spread stealthily without drawing the attention of anyone. Suddenly, they burst into the open through lag measures like low employee morale, deteriorating interpersonal relationship, social loafing in meetings, loss of productivity, low employee engagement index, lack of trust, high attrition rate, etc.

The question is, why do people have a such a high need for power and control? Dr. Daniel A. Bochner, a Georgia based psychologist explains this need at a very basic level. He says,"Essentially, power and control are defenses against feelings of inadequacy, weakness, fear, being unlovable or unloved, and worthlessness. Obviously, if a person feels such wretched feelings, there is a huge motivation to keep those feelings under wraps. Power and control specifically help in keeping those feelings under wraps. Of course, if someone is feeling powerful and in control, it is unlikely that they will feel inadequate, unloved, or worthless."

This is a deep psychological disease, which all managers need to be aware of and be on the lookout for – first, in themselves and then, their teams. It is important for managers to be aware of themselves since they set the standards of behaviour. It is an important unspoken KRA for every manager to take the responsibility to keep power out of the workplace. Since an excess of power and control among people is perceived as a disease, it requires the full cycle of symptom identification, monitoring, diagnosis, medication, follow-up monitoring and lots of counselling. Organisations need to take expert help from counsellors to help people with power and control streak realise that their feelings of inadequacy, weakness and fear is misplaced. Even if it is true in certain cases, corrective measures in the environment should to be taken to ensure that affected persons get enough stimulus to feel adequate, safe, loveable and worthwhile. Managers need to consciously act on this hidden KRA to make their work teams and thereby, their organisation a psychologically healthy workplace. Good psychological health of work cultures can lead to extremely healthy bottom-line outcomes.

The author is Dr. Devashis Rath, senior consultant, DDI, India, Mumbai

The views expressed in the column are that of the  author only