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Carl Robinson, Ph.D. on Leadership
11/20/2013
We help maximize the effectiveness of individuals and organizations by helping them improve their ability to lead, work together, select and develop their people. Some of our related business services include: executive coaching, executive team coaching and executive assessments for development and selection.
 
Carl Robinson, Ph.D., Managing Principal
 
Seattle, Washington
206-545-1990
carl@leadershipconsulting.com
Why Empowering Others Makes You a Better Leader
For a very long time, there was a belief in corporate America that empowerment wasn’t something to bestow upon employees. They were subordinate, management was in charge, and there was rarely any pushback with regard to who led and who followed. Thankfully, times have changed. Managers have now, for the most part, discovered how much more successful businesses are when they employ the creativity, perceptions, ideas, and individual talents their people bring to the table.
 
Empowering employees to develop and do better in their roles and for the company does not take the power away from managers, like so many once feared. It, instead, creates a better work environment all the way around, including the creation of better and more powerful leaders. Here’s how:
  • Improved Morale: According to a 2011 study from the University of Iowa, employees who feel empowered by employers have a higher morale than those who are not, regardless of their industry, job, or culture. And, why not? When people have the skills, knowledge, and resources to do a job, they are going to feel better about themselves and the work they do when they receive the authorization to put them to work.
  • Increased Productivity: The same study also identified increased productivity as a benefit of empowering. When a manager learns to tap the creativity, skills, and expertise of an employee in a way that motivates that individual to perform, it increases the amount of work the individual wants to do for themselves and for his or her manager. In the same vein, empowering your people enables you to let go of things that may otherwise bog you down as a manager, increase efficiencies by allowing someone else to do it instead, and therein also increase productivity.
  • Affected Bottom-line: Scott Seibert, professor of management and organizations in the Tippie College of Business, emphasizes that when properly executed, empowerment can lead to higher job satisfaction, lower turnover, and reduced stress in the workplace. When morale is improved, productivity is increased, efficiencies are greater, and things are running more smoothly in general, customers are also going to “feel” the change, and the effects are going to be seen in the bottom-line.
 
According to Seibert, “Empowerment is an effective approach for improving employee attitudes and work behaviors in a broad range of industries, occupations and geographic regions.” It’s easy to see why.
 
The great and inspirational Stephen Covey said it best: "An empowered organization is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organizational success." -
Advanced Leadership Consulting  •  2815 Eastlake Ave., E, Suite 300  •  Seattle, WA 98102
http://www.leadershipconsulting.com/
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