The Demand

This week, you catch yourself the next time you override a decision that met the documented standard — even if your way would have been better — and you name it as Control Snapback before you act on it. If you keep retrieving the domain every time a hire’s call is not the call you would have made, you train them out of taking initiative, and then you will conclude they are not ready for the role you never actually let them hold.

The Work

  1. Run the diagnostic on yourself this week: has there been a decision by a hire that met the documented standard, that you overrode anyway because it was not what you would have done.
  2. If yes, name it to yourself as Control Snapback, not a correction. The standard is the standard — better is not the standard.
  3. Find that hire this week and explicitly restore the domain: tell them their call was within standard, and that you should not have overridden it.
  4. Watch your own behavior for the rest of the week for implicit retrievals — quietly redoing a task the way you would have done it without saying anything.
  5. If you catch yourself doing this, stop, and let the original work stand if it met the standard.

This week, you name and correct one instance of Control Snapback with the hire it affected, before it accumulates into Role Drift.