The document discusses employee empowerment. It defines empowerment as giving front-line employees authority to make decisions through power sharing and trust building. The rationale for empowerment includes promoting creativity, better productivity and quality. Leaders must model empowering behaviors, inspire a shared vision, challenge processes and enable others. Inhibitors can include resistance from employees and management. Empowerment must be implemented through a supportive environment and overcoming inhibitors. Challenges include increased risk and slow decision making. Lessons on empowerment are provided from leaders like Fred Smith of FedEx and Steve Jobs of Apple.

2. Agenda
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•
•
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•
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Leadership
Employee Empowerment
Rationale behind empowerment
Leader’s role in empowerment
Inhibitors
Implementation
Empowerment traps
Challenges
Lessons on Empowerment from selected
Leaders

3. Four Quadrants of Leadership
C
A
Low
Adaptive
Leadership
Visionary
Leadership
High
K
N
O
W
L
E
D
G
E
D
B
Authoritative
Leadership
Low
Collaborative
Leadership
APPLICATION
High

4. 6
5
K
N
O
W
L
E
D
G
E
4
D
C
3
Increasing Staff Leadership
2
1
B
A
1
2
3
APPLICATION
4
5

5. Employee Empowerment
• Theory X style of leadership
 * Management assumes employees are
inherently lazy and will avoid work if they can
 * Believed that workers need to be supervised
• Theory Y style of leadership
 * Assumes employees be ambitious and selfmotivated and exercise self-control
 * Communicates openly with subordinates
 * Minimizes the difference between superiorsubordinate relationships
 * Creates a comfortable environment in which
subordinates can develop and use their abilities

6. Employee Empowerment
• Controlled transfer of authority to make
decisions and take action
• Process of giving front-line employees the
authority to make decisions
 power-sharing, trust, team-building
• “It's not about having power over other people.
It's about empowering people to step up and
lead.” William George (Former Chairman and CEO of Medtronic)

7. Rationale behind Empowerment
• Promotes creative thinking
• Increased employee contribution
• Increased respect among employees secondary
to teamwork
• Increased power equals lower absenteeism
and better productivity
• Employees have more satisfying work

8. Rationale behind Empowerment
(Contd..)
• An increased depth of competence among
employees secondary to cross-training
• Less conflict with administration and
managers
• Employees are more likely to agree with
changes if they participate in decision making
• Better ideas, better decisions, better quality,
better productivity and therefore better
competitiveness

9. Leader’s role in Empowerment
Leadership, Commitment, Facilitation
• Model the Way
 Clarify your personal values
 Do what you say attitude
• Inspire a shared vision
 Desire to make something happen
 To change
• Challenge the Process
 Search for Opportunities
 “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried
to succeed” - Theodore Roosevelt

10. Leader’s role in Empowerment
(Contd..)
• Enable others to Act
 Foster Collaboration
 Build Trust
• Encourage the Heart
 Recognize Contributions
 Never forget to praise
 Celebrate the values and victories
• Be a facilitator
 Exhibit a supportive attitude
 Take quick action on recommendation

11. Inhibitors of empowerment
• Resistance from employees and unions
 Skepticism and inertia to change
• Resistance from management
 Insecurity
 Ego
 Management training
• Lack of workforce readiness
 Employees is not prepared to take the responsibilities
• Organizational structure and management practices
 Number of layers of management between workers and
decision-makers
 Encouragement of employees to speak out against policies
and procedures that inhibit quality and productivity

12. Implementation of Empowerment
• Four broad steps
 Create a supportive environment
 Target and overcome inhibitors
 Put vehicles in place
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Brainstorming
Nominal Group Technique
Quality circles
Walking and talking (MBWA)
 Assess, adjust and improve

13. Empowered Organisations Can Beat
the Competition to Success
• Results of Empowerment
Results in increased initiative, involvement, enthusiasm & innovation.
Caters to an important human need - the need for recognition and self
actualization.
Creates “mini managers” who are self directed across all levels of the
business.
• Empower and Relieve yourself
Changes the managers’ mind-set & leaves them more time for
company-wide improvements.
Leader has more time and thinking time to engage in overall visionary
strategizing
Helps organizations a better and stronger growth potential

14. Challenges
• Increased Risk
• Slow Decision making
• Mid-managers and supervisors consideration of
loss of authority
• Slow process needing patience
• Assuming employees have the skill to be
empowered
• Failing to define empowerment for middle
managers and supervisors

15. Lessons on Empowerment from
Selected Leaders
1. Fred Smith (CEO, FedEx)
• He empowers his employees by periodically survey them
about their managers.
• He monitors, measures & reinforces the concept using the
famous FedEx survey.
• This empowers employees for self-leadership.

16. Lessons on Empowerment from
Selected Leaders
2. Steve Jobs (Founder & Ex-CEO, Apple)
• He believed that employees are the real creators of value in any
organization.
• He empowered employees to innovate & solve problems.
• He said: “You have to be run by ideas, not hierarchy. The best idea
must win, not the ‘best person’ with the most power or seniority.”
• This value has helped the company to produce one groundbreaking, beautiful product after another.

17. Lessons on Empowerment from
Selected Leaders
3. Vineet Nayar (ex-CEO, HCL)
• His company’s motto, “Employee first, customer second”
• He invites employees to evaluate their bosses and their bosses’
bosses; posts his own review on the firm’s intranet for all to see.
• He believes that organization should be inverted, where the top
is accountable to the bottom, and CEO’s office should become
irrelevant.

18. Lessons on Empowerment from
Selected Leaders
4. Ulysses S. Grant (War General)
• He felt empowerment begins with knowledge.
• It is important for every employee to understand the
organization’s mission & the important role they play in
carrying it out.
• This will empower them to think for themselves, not to
act like robots & outperform competitors who don’t do it.

19. THANK YOU
Presented By:
Jayaprakash Jain (11BM60033)
Ashish Khattry (11BM60084)
Ranjeet Kumar Singh (11BM60068)
Yash Mehta (11BM60116)