In today’s fast-paced, fast-changing world, we need true leaders. Leaders who have a clear vision of the future of the organization. Leaders who can inspire people with how they communicate their vision. Leaders who trust the people to journey towards this vision.
However, modern leadership requires more than this. One of these overlooked leadership traits is empowering individual employees and their teams. Today I will discuss facets of empowerment and why empowering employees is important for a leader.
The benefits of empowerment
Empowerment of employees is crucial to success in today’s complex world. Here are some of the important benefits:
Increased engagement - Empowered people will more easily do their work from their intrinsic motivation. They will find satisfaction in achieving their goals from within themselves instead of through external pressure or rewards.
Innovation and creativity - Empowered people are enabled to find the best way to reach a goal, and have better opportunities to think outside of the box. This fosters creativity and innovation.
Better decisions - The most obvious way to have better decisions by empowerment is for teams to decide as they are closest to the information. Another great way to make better decisions is to enable people to bring their knowledge and experiences into strategic discussions, like during organisational transformations.
Agility - Empowerment allows teams to respond quickly to new insights and opportunities as opposed to traditional organizations, where others decide resulting in delays and indecisiveness.
How to empower people
Now that I discussed some of the benefits of empowerment, let’s look at how to empower people.
Foster an environment where empowerment thrives
It all starts with building trust. This can be relatively straightforward or difficult to establish. It all depends on where the organization is now. You can imagine how difficult it will be to build trust in an organization where the highest-paid person’s opinion (HIPPO) rules and people prioritize advancing the corporate ladder over building the best products with their team.
But if you wish to empower people, they need to be able to trust that this kind of toxic behaviour will not occur. One of the ways to understand the level of trust in the organization is the existence of healthy conflict. Are people courageous enough to voice potentially unpopular opinions when they believe they need to do this to reach the team’s goals? An absence of (healthy) conflict on the work floor is an anti-pattern.
Another important aspect of fostering an environment of empowerment is allowing people to schedule their work and create their work-life balance. It is a way to show you see them as professionals who can decide what is best for them and the company.
It is about showing you value every person as an individual and an intrinsically motivated professional.
Ensure transparency
A key element of empowerment is ensuring people have access to relevant information to make decisions. If a team doesn’t know the company goals, they will struggle to decide based on what they learn.
Transparency doesn’t only relate to the communication of the goals. It is also vital not to hide seemingly bad news under the carpet. To allow everyone to make the best decisions possible, they have to know the full story. Professionals know how to deal with unexpected news. Especially when they are part of the discussion.
Invite people to make a difference
The organization is a treasure trove of talent. What’s more, people may have talents and interests that aren’t put to good use in their current roles. They may be able to shine in unexpected ways if you empower them.
I have facilitated multiple transformation programs where I asked people to volunteer to join the transformation team. Without fail, people stepped up and enriched that team with their experience and insights. I also conducted workshops with around 100 people from a department to discuss how to approach a reorganization (in a Purpose to Practice workshop). Involving the people greatly helped the efforts to improve.
Letting go of the controls - Delegation
Many people find it difficult to let go of the controls. But if you wish to empower people, you need to. Delegation knows different levels, from full managerial control to fully handing over all responsibilities. One shade of grey is letting the team decide, but asking to be consulted afterwards. Another shade of grey is consulting the team and the manager making the decision.
I highly encourage you to decide with the team which delegation level suits you best for a certain situation. You can do this with Delegation Poker.
Training, coaching and support
To allow your empowered people to flourish, you need to give them the right tools. So, allow the people to train themselves in the skills they wish/need to improve. Also, coach them and support them.
Lead by example
Lastly, leaders should demonstrate the qualities and behaviours they wish to see in their people. I have seen horrible examples of leaders hiding bad news from the people because they would be motivated otherwise. Or leaders determining which programming language should be used to create the software. You can’t expect people to be empowered when leaders don’t show they are serious. You can’t simply say: “Go and be empowered”.
Leaders should show integrity, humility and trust. The best leaders I worked with always had one narrative. In good times, but especially also in bad times.
Conclusion
I know many leaders who don’t appreciate the potential of the people in their organization. That is not only small-minded but also enormously wasteful. It is ignoring the true potential of the organization.
Employees aren’t cogs in a machine. They are all unique individuals who are intrinsically motivated as long as you give them autonomy, mastery and purpose.
How could you ever lead if people would not follow you based on their free decision?