By Jean Hollands

Questions to ponder for a controlling type

Are my controlling ways actually escalating the departure of some of my staff?

Can I step back, relax and give my employees all the room needed to learn their tasks?

Can I demonstrate patience and caring?

Can I act as though one of us has a fatal disease and show the same kind of understanding I would have if that were so?

Can I have the self-confidence to know that I can get to the other side of this?

Can I believe that I don’t have to try so hard?

Can I restrain myself from leaping to the other end of black, imagining the worst and believing that things will never get better?

Can I take care of myself as though this is a vacation or a sabbatical even while I am on the job?

Could I refrain from selling my ideas and stop making my case?

Could I look now, in this time, for understanding about my clutching need to have what I want?

Can I have optimism that I will not lose much ground in the long run?

Can I stop jumping to conclusions that this will be the beginning of the end, instead of a new beginning?

Do I always have to be in a challenging mode, winning, running, fighting for something or someone?

Can I begin to look at my compulsive nature?

Can I look at the painful part of me who is afraid of ambiguity?

Can I relax, even when someone is doing “it” wrong?

Can I relax even when people are not listening to me?

Can I lighten the reigns about some things?

Can I laugh at my rigidity?

Can I catch myself when I am being manipulative, authoritarian or bossy?

Can I trust that I am raising my consciousness and will one day seem more grounded and relaxed?

Can I get off of the other guy’s case and look at my own case?

If I do, can I not be so hard on myself?

If I’m not so hard on myself, and others, can I have a good time?

If I have a good time, am I still a worthwhile human being?

Jean A. Hollands, CEO, Growth & Leadership Center, author, “Silicon Syndrome: How to Survive a High-Tech Relationship,” “Optimistic Organizations” and “Red Ink Behavior: Measure the High Cost of Problem Employees,” was voted Business Woman of the Year in 1986 and 1996. Write to GLC, 1451 Grant Road, Mountain View, 94040.