The Counterintuitive Secret of Leadership | Jessica Kriegel | TED (Level 1)

A speaker talks about control. Before a talk, he often worries: the room should be cooler, the stage bigger. But he cannot control these things. Control is an illusion. You can only control how you show up. So he tries something radical: surrender. Surrender is not giving up. It is accepting what you cannot control and focusing on what you can. A study from Stanford looked at 243 companies. Companies that adapt win. They do three times better than companies that try to control everything. The speaker gives an example. He was a new HR leader. The board said they must cut 20 percent of staff. Instead of hiding the news, he told everyone immediately. Some people left, but many stayed. They trusted him. In the end, they did not need to fire anyone. Another example is a plant manager named Tim. His plant had problems. Workers did not trust leaders. Tim cut down the parking signs for managers with a chainsaw. He said workers could park anywhere. Workers began to trust him. The plant became the best one. Navy SEALs have a saying: control what you can control. Stop trying to control everything else. When you surrender, you can adapt and lead better.