A psychological profile of a control freak

Nov 27, 2024 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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…Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News- Imagine an official who believes he’s the last bastion of sanity in a world of incompetence. His title could be anything but to him, the real title should be Guardian of Order.

Every morning, he walks into his office, a mug in hand with “World’s Only Competent Person” stamped on it, knowing he alone stands between order and chaos., progress or stagnation. He’s not just overseeing things; he’s personally responsible for every cog in the wheel, from whether the office plants get watered to who parks where. And the kicker? He thinks he’s doing everyone a favour.

The first thing you notice about this control freak is that he has a white-knuckled grip on decision-making. He’s everywhere at once, holding meetings to prepare for other meetings and inspecting memos with the fervour of a detective looking for clues. It’s not so much that he doesn’t trust his team—though let’s be clear, he doesn’t—it’s that he’s fundamentally convinced they wouldn’t get it right if he wasn’t there to guide every syllable, every comma. Delegation? Unthinkable. How can he leave decisions to people who don’t even understand the concept of “stacking paper clips in size order”?

This guy has a system, and that system has sub-systems. To him, every policy recommendation is a potential minefield, which is why he insists on rewriting them all himself—yes, even if it’s just an amendment about waste disposal. Any idea that isn’t his own, he takes apart, dissects, and “reforms,” leaving it barely recognizable by the time it’s out of his hands. If you’re his subordinate, you’ve learned that the best way to pitch a proposal is to frame it like he thought of it first. Even then, don’t hold your breath.

At meetings, he rarely sits at the table with his staff. No, he presides alone like a king in his court, a lone judge. He’s fond of lengthy monologues, which he delivers with the kind of gravitas reserved for national emergencies. Everyone around him nods.

Now, why all this obsessive control? Well, underneath that sharp suit and fluent delivery, our official harbors a not–secret paranoia: he’s absolutely certain that things would unravel if he let go for even a second. He imagines plots and subplots everywhere, alliances forming behind closed doors, waiting for their chance to “alter the agenda.” The word “conspiracy” gets thrown around a lot in his office, but in whispers, because it’s all too clear he believes he’s surrounded by a nest of well-meaning but misguided—or worse, secretly ambitious—colleagues who can’t be trusted to stick to the plan.

Yet, this official’s paranoia is selective. If a success happens, he’s front and center, basking in the glory as if the entire team simply wouldn’t have made it without his “guidance.” But the moment a project fails, he pivots like a gymnast, finding subtle ways to deflect responsibility. “I left that in the hands of the working group,” he’ll say, “though I did suggest a more thorough approach.” Success is his; failure is a team effort or someone else’s fault. It’s a skill he’s honed to an art, leaving the public convinced he’s a strategic mastermind.

The irony, of course, is that while he’s busy orchestrating every detail, the real issues get shoved aside. Things fall apart and system buckles under pressure because every memo has to pass his desk before it can leave the building.

What our control freak doesn’t see is that his obsession with micromanagement has made him blind to the bigger picture. He’s so wrapped up in the idea that he alone can keep the wheels turning that he forgets there are more than just wheels involved—there’s a whole machine, and it’s grinding to a halt while he tinkers with the gears.

This official’s downfall is inevitable. Slowly, as the public complaints stack up, he realizes he’s built a system so inflexible it’s paralyzed. But instead of changing, he digs in, doubling down on his authority, ordering new rounds of protocols and requiring even more oversight. He becomes a caricature of himself—a man trying to manage by checklist, baffled that his “perfect” procedures have somehow failed him.

And so, his career ends not in both scandal but also in quiet collapse. Policies stagnate, his colleagues grow resentful, and his legacy fades. He exits the office one final time, still convinced that it was everyone else who couldn’t follow the plan, while the machinery finally free of his grip—begins to hum back to life, one piece at a time.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)  

(A psychological profile of a control freak)

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• Competent Person, Guardian of Order, Imagine an official, policy recommendation

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