"In being strict, you were able to control"
About this Quote
The subtext is where it gets interesting. “Strict” is doing double duty: it can mean clear standards and consistent enforcement, but it can also be a euphemism for rigidity, surveillance, or fear-based compliance. The quote invites you to admire the outcome (“control”) while quietly skipping the moral audit of the method. It’s the rhetorical equivalent of a tidy spreadsheet: the numbers add up, so don’t ask how the human cost was categorized.
Contextually, this is the language of environments where variability is expensive: factories, sales teams, high-stakes operations, or any workplace shaped by deadlines and measurable outputs. In those settings, strictness becomes legible as competence. Yet the phrase also betrays a worldview in which people are variables to be managed rather than partners to be persuaded. Control is the prize, not trust.
What makes it work is its clean causal chain: strictness leads to control, full stop. That simplicity is persuasive precisely because it’s incomplete. It offers managers an alibi (I’m strict because I have to be) and a promise (strictness will work), while leaving unanswered the harder question: control of what, and for whom?
Quote Details
| Topic | Leadership |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Jackson, Joseph. (2026, January 17). In being strict, you were able to control. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/in-being-strict-you-were-able-to-control-60307/
Chicago Style
Jackson, Joseph. "In being strict, you were able to control." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/in-being-strict-you-were-able-to-control-60307/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"In being strict, you were able to control." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/in-being-strict-you-were-able-to-control-60307/. Accessed 11 Feb. 2026.







