Have you ever noticed that some people become less confident after joining a new company? Not because they became less capable. Not because they forgot their skills. Not because the work became harder. They simply stopped believing in themselves.
I don’t think that’s an accident. I think it’s one of control’s most destructive consequences. Control doesn’t just manage work.
It teaches capable people that they aren’t capable.
Confidence Doesn’t Come From Encouragement
Most leaders think confidence comes from praise. It doesn’t. Confidence comes from experience.
Psychologist Albert Bandura called this self-efficacy, our belief that we can successfully handle challenges. Where does that belief come from? Not from hearing,“Good job.” It comes from thinking, I did it.”
Every time we solve a difficult problem, make a hard decision, or recover from failure, our confidence grows. Not because someone gave it to us. Because we earned it.
How Control Quietly Destroys Confidence
Now imagine the opposite. Every decision needs approval. Every idea gets second-guessed. Every solution is rewritten. Every mistake becomes a lesson in why leadership should have decided instead.
What happens?
People stop trusting themselves.
Not because they’re incapable. Because they rarely experience mastery anymore. Eventually, something changes inside them. The voice that once said, “I can figure this out.” Becomes, “I should probably ask first.”
That’s a tragedy.
Confidence Dies in Stages
It rarely disappears all at once. First, people stop making decisions. Then they stop taking initiative. Then they stop sharing ideas. Eventually, they stop believing they have anything valuable to contribute.
Control doesn’t simply reduce autonomy.
It replaces confidence with dependence.
Evelyn’s Story
Imagine a software engineer named Evelyn. She joined a team known for solving difficult problems quickly. She loved it. She wrote code. Released features. Watched customers benefit from her work.
Then a new manager arrived.
He required every code change, no matter how small, to receive formal approval before deployment. Every meeting became an exercise in criticism. Every decision became another opportunity for second-guessing.
At first, Evelyn defended her ideas. Eventually, she stopped.
The work hadn’t become harder. She simply stopped believing her judgment would ever be trusted. By the end of the year, she avoided difficult work altogether.
Not because she lacked ability.
Because her confidence had quietly disappeared.
Research Shows Just How Powerful Distrust Is
In 2024, researchers ran an experiment using Amazon Mechanical Turk. Workers completed the same task. One group worked normally. The other group was told their work would be monitored under additional rules.
Here’s what’s fascinating. The restrictions were mostly symbolic. People could easily work around them. The controls didn’t actually prevent poor work. They simply communicated something.
“We’re watching you.”
In other words:
“We don’t fully trust you.”
The results were striking. The monitored group performed worse. Accuracy declined. Errors increased.
The highest performers suffered the biggest drop.
And the most difficult tasks experienced the largest decline in performance.
Think about that!
The very people leaders most want to empower were the first to lose confidence when control increased.
The Irony
Leaders usually tighten control when work becomes more important. The research suggests that’s exactly when confidence matters most. Complex work requires judgment. Judgment requires confidence.Confidence requires opportunities to make meaningful decisions.
Control interrupts that entire chain.
Five Ways Leaders Protect Confidence
1. Let people make real decisions.
Confidence grows through action.
Not observation.
2. Resist correcting everything.
Sometimes an imperfect solution teaches more than a perfect instruction.
3. Celebrate independent thinking.
Don’t only reward outcomes.
Reward thoughtful judgment.
4. Let people own difficult work.
Confidence isn’t built on easy victories.
It’s built by overcoming meaningful challenges.
5. Ask before you tell.
Instead of saying,
“Here’s what you should do.”
Try asking,
“What do you think?”
Confidence begins the moment people realize their thinking matters.
One Final Thought
The saddest employee isn’t the one who makes mistakes. It’s the one who no longer believes they’re capable of solving them.
Control doesn’t create stronger people. It creates more dependent people.
Great leaders understand something many organizations forget. Confidence isn’t something you give your team. It’s something you protect. Because every time people successfully navigate uncertainty, they don’t just solve a problem.
They become the kind of person who believes they can solve the next one.
