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Chapter
18
Leading and Empowering
Self and Others
“Great leaders often inspire their
followers to high levels of achievement
by showing them how their work
contributes to worthwhile ends.”
~ Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus,
Leaders
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Copyright © 2009 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Chapter Objectives
• Identify the skills and characteristics of effective leaders and
develop these skills to increase your ability to lead.
• Provide leadership to others, even when you’re not an official
leader.
• Adopt a mindset that allows employees to take responsibility
for their work, as opposed to controlling their every move.
• Reduce any fears you have about mistakes made by your
empowered subordinates.
• Empower yourself when an organization or manager does
not provide it.
• Motivate others to take risks and do what they think is best.
• Give responsibility of doing a task to another while ensuring
quality of work.
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What is Leadership?
• A process of social influence to move individual
and groups toward goal achievement.
• Sharing a vision and engaging followers in that
vision.
• The ability to move an organization to a higher
level of performance by transforming vision into
significant actions.
• A relationship, as opposed to the property of an
individual.
• An observable, learnable, set of practices and
skills.
• An integration of theory, process, and practice.
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Characteristics of Effective Leaders
•
•
•
•
•
Challenge the process
Inspire a shared vision
Enable others to act
Model the way
Encourage the heart
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Leaders versus Managers
• Leadership in organizations is about
influencing the behavior of others, and
superiors and subordinates alike
– It can have a direct influence on motivating
others to achieve organizational goals.
• Not all managers are leaders and not all leaders
are managers.
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Self-leadership
• Happens when individuals act on their own to
achieve the organization mission, vision,
purpose, values, and goals.
• Occurs when you challenge yourself to muster
the self-direction and self-motivation you need
to perform a task or achieve a goal.
• Helps create an ideal organization.
• Results in more productive employees
because they have more control and decisionmaking power.
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What is Empowerment?
• Empowerment is the process by which a leader
or manager shares his or her power with
subordinates.
• Shortened product life cycles and constant
focus on change have created a need for the
knowledge worker.
– Knowledge workers are employees who need
and use information to perform their work.
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Why is Empowerment Important?
• Empowerment has been embraced due to its ability
to provide motivation.
• Through empowerment, organizations are able to
support the motivating potential inherent in
satisfying higher-level needs.
• When workers are empowered, they are involved in
decision making, asked to suggest new services
and processes, and encouraged to solve problems
creatively and effectively.
• An organization that empowers its employees may
be better suited to attract and retain its highly
skilled and trained professionals, thus maintaining
its competitive edge.
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Maslow’s Hierarchy
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Benefits of Empowerment
• Empowerment reinforces member participation and
growth, commitment to quality, and a more open,
honest environment.
• With empowerment, people have a greater sense of
achievement, improved confidence and self-esteem,
and a sense of belonging.
• Empowerment speeds up reaction time and decision
making and provides speed and flexibility, allowing
quicker response to customers.
• Empowered employees are more likely to offer ideas,
exercise creativity, and develop more innovative
processes and products than those who are not.
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Benefits of Empowerment (continued)
• With empowerment, employees are more
responsible, which leads to greater loyalty,
trust, and quality.
• Empowerment reduces operational costs by
eliminating unnecessary layers of management,
staff, quality control, and checking operations.
• Empowerment reduces turnover and aids in
retention.
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Disadvantages or Costs of Empowerment
• Empowerment results in greater costs in
selection and hiring.
• Empowerment can result in lower and
inconsistent delivery.
• Empowerment typically comes with
boundaries.
• Some individuals cannot handle or do not want
the responsibility of empowerment.
• Some managers avoid empowerment due to
fear of change and the unknown.
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To Empower or Not to Empower?
• Suggestion involvement
– The organization makes a small shift from the
production line or control model.
• Job involvement
– Employees are given greater freedom in their job
and tasks.
• High involvement
– Employees have much greater voice and
discretion over their work environment.
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Empowerment Considerations
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Guidelines for Implementing and Improving
Empowerment
1. Walk the talk.
2. Set high performance standards.
3. Recognize empowerment (in the structure of
the organization).
4. Change old habits.
5. Start small.
6. Build trust.
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Implementing Empowerment
Four ingredients of empowerment must be present
in an environment for effective employee
involvement:
• Information about the organization and its
performance.
• Rewards based on the organization’s performance.
• Knowledge that enables employees to understand
and contribute to organizational performance.
• Power to make decisions that influence organizational
direction and performance.
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Social Structural Characteristics That Create an
Empowering Environment
•
•
•
•
•
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Low role ambiguity
Wide span of control
Sociopolitical support
Access to information
Access to resources
Participative unit climate
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Five Stages to Implementing
Empowerment
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Investigation
Preparation
Implementation
Transition
Maturation
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Initiating Self-empowerment
• Create a vision of preferred achievements for
yourself and your group.
• Understand your need for dependency – and
let go of your need.
• Identify and manage your allies and
adversaries, and network and politic where
appropriate.
• Develop risk-taking strategies.
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Empowerment through Effective
Delegation
• Delegation involves assigning work – and the
authority and responsibility for the work – to
others.
• Healthy environments are characterized by
delegation.
• Delegation involves transferring authority,
responsibility, and accountability to others,
typically subordinates.
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Benefits of Delegation
• Delegation enables staff to handle specific
tasks that are routine.
• Transferring responsibility to staff aids in their
development and increases staff readiness for
promotions.
• Delegation increases the delegatees’ level of job
satisfaction.
• Delegation can lead to better decision making.
• Delegation allows for growth and development
of the manager who’s delegating.
• Delegation demonstrates a manager’s trust in
his or her employees.
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Challenges and Activities in Delegation
•
Challenges:
–
–
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•
Lack of time
Perfectionism
Fear of surrendering authority
Lack of confidence in staff
Dual accountability
Activities:
– The assignment of responsibility
– The transferring of authority
– Establishing accountability
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A Process for Effective Delegation
• Create a work environment that has mutual
support, mutual trust, and clear lines of
communication.
• Decide what to delegate.
• Assess and select capable individuals.
• Delegate over stages, allowing employees to work
more and more on their own without constant
supervision.
• Establish controls.
• Provide help and coaching as needed and
requested.
• Provide feedback.
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Summary
• Effective leaders are needed to help individuals and
organizations succeed and achieve their full
potential.
• Leaders establish a vision and, through their actions
and behaviors, inspire others to embrace and
achieve that vision.
• Effective leaders use empowerment to increase
employee participation, creativity, and motivation in
order to remain viable and competitive.
• An understanding of empowerment will allow you to
increase job satisfaction while effectively achieving
organizational goals.
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