Someone who controls access can shape behavior without ever issuing an order.

Control over access is control without instruction. Whoever decides who gets the meeting, the information, the opportunity, or the time shapes behaviour completely without ever telling anyone to do anything, because people work out what is rewarded and adjust. The power is real and it leaves no fingerprints.

If you hold a gate of any kind, ask what people are doing to get through it. That behaviour is the instruction you are actually giving, whether or not you meant to give one.