For some leaders, control might mean getting more involved in every level of company goings-on and ensuring nothing happens without their say-so. But this style of leadership can sometimes stray into micromanagement and end up stripping trust, confidence, and even innovation from a team. But with inflation, interest rates, and a shifting political landscape all adding pressure to how businesses run and survive, control must still remain a business priority. Especially for smaller businesses who are looking to steady the ship in the face of more change and worryingly vague possibilities about what lies around the next corner.

However, instead of a type of control that results in running the day-to-day on rails, leaders should look to embody a sense of control that is democratic, gives empowerment and takes a data-driven approach to leadership and decision-making.

Control in finance

To explore this new definition of control in more detail, let’s turn our attention to a department ripe for its implementation: finance. According to Pleo research, financial stability is a top priority for 74% of UK businesses this year. A vital stepping stone towards revenue growth, financial stability means that, before businesses fill their pockets, they can ensure they don’t have any holes in them.

However, control in finance doesn’t mean traditional, manual oversight. It means empowerment and establishing a process where data has a key role to play. Much like the concept of control, finance is undergoing a rethink and today it is no longer a back-office function. Instead, it is a transformative department that can have a real impact on business strategy.

But control here is key and, in finance, this isn’t just down to management style, but digital transformation; the type that arms finance teams with the digital capabilities to monitor spend and build data-driven insights from company outgoings. This control doesn't turn your CFO into one big bottleneck, but means the responsibility is shared between multiple employees and frees them up to make a far greater impact in the process.

What AI means for control

A part of every modern digital transformation strategy is AI. But for some leaders, AI doesn’t mean control; it means cybersecurity threats and potentially replacing human input with automation. There is a sense of unease when it comes to AI. It may be true that humans should remain at the helm e.g. data protection, customer service and of course, oversight. But there are also areas where AI can be used to automate time-consuming tasks and create significant gains for your team.

To use AI to create this new sense of control, leaders must first ask themselves what it is they want to control. Does it really need to be oversight of a copious amount of receipts or expense requests? Or should it instead be more high-level, e.g. the business’s overarching financial strategy and spend management process?

Only 27% of businesses are confident about the introduction of AI (generative and otherwise) into finance. But having a team that is not just competent in using AI, but understands and employs data science, business analytics and coding, can kickstart the evolution of the finance function and performance. Further, this can create a new form of control where the many, not the few, feel empowered.

Control, democratised

For leaders, dishing out responsibility to employees doesn’t necessarily mean relenting control. In fact, it can mean more of it. As many as 80% of employees feel more motivated to work when they have higher levels of trust from their employers. And it’s fair to say that company spending is one area where trust is lacking – have you tried to expense something lately?

But the domino effect of your finance team migrating to this new definition of control is that trust and transparency skyrockets. This can have a seriously positive impact on the company as a whole, improving not just spend oversight, but employee happiness and retention.

Trusting employees to spend autonomously might not come naturally for some businesses, but it’s all about making the first move. The responsibility of being in charge of their spending and/or being held accountable for what they’re spending means teams are treated like adults and will build bridges in-house where there weren’t any before.

What we can get out of control

There will always be an argument for maintaining the status quo. If your business has weathered the last few years, including the recession and the pandemic, you might want to avoid rocking the boat. But, if we’re truly focussed on the future then we need to realise that the tools and the thinking that got us here, won’t get us there. Further, as the workplace evolves, so should the concepts we use to populate it.

Pleo might be changing how leaders and employees alike think about expenses and finance, but the bigger picture is that pillars such as control are also changing. If we give this idea our buy-in from the get-go, and embrace this new concept, then we’ll only grow more resilient and able to seize on the opportunities that come our way. This new line of thinking won’t allow things to get out of control, but it will mean we’re getting more out of it.