2. INSECURITY IS THE ENEMY
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One of the biggest reasons many leaders never delegate or empower employees is because
they are insecure. Some are afraid that one of their employees will outshine them. Others
are afraid their employees won’t do the job correctly.
A secure leader won’t mind if someone they lead ends up exceeding them. They’ll take that
as a sign of their leadership, not the other way around.
For those who micromanage because he doesn’t trust his employees to do the job well,
they either hired wrong or trained wrong. Both are the leader’s responsibility and should
be addressed.
3. EXTREME OWNERSHIP
That being said, even as a leader empowers and
delegates authority to others on their team, they should
never relinquish the ultimate responsibilities of the team
and their outcomes.
Jocko Willink wrote a book called Extreme Ownership
where he recalls his leadership experiences as a Navy
SEAL officer. He recounts a major failure his team
suffered and how he learned how to take ownership of
his team as the leader, regardless of who actually
messed up.
Former U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan once said, “you can
delegate authority, but you cannot delegate
responsibility.” Building strong teams still means the
leader takes full responsibility and extreme ownership of
the organization.
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Growth Mindset
Caro l D w e c k once spoke a t the TED conference abo u t “ T h e P o w e r o f
Bel i ev i n g T h a t You Can Improve.” It talked about r e - f r a m i n g f a i l u r e a s
oppo r t u n i t i es to improve instead of a statement ab o u t o n e ’ s a b i l i t i e s o r
char a c t e r .
A lea d e r w h o empowers e mployees well will expect f a i l u r e , e s p e c i a l l y i n
the b e g i n n i ng. Nobody ex cels right out of the gate . M o s t p e o p l e h a v e a
l earn i n g c u r v e, and a strong leader will build that i n t o h i s p r o c e s s e s f o r
bui l di n g h i s team.
5. BUILDING CONSENSUS
This can be truly difficult for a strong type-A leader,
but building consensus is one of the best ways to
empower a team. When people are allowed into the
decision-making process and are invited to give their
input, they become way more engaged in executing on
those decisions.
These are just a few ways that strong leaders
empower their employees and ultimately build strong
teams around them to accomplish their mission.
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