This is a handout on leadership and empowerment. It complements the Leadership and Empowerment presentation.

1. LEADERSHIP AND EMPOWERMENT
As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence.
The next best the people honour and praise.
The next, the people fear.
The next, the people hate.
But when the best leaders’ work is done, the people say, “We did it ourselves”.
Lao Tzu (c. 500 BC.), the way of Lao Tzu, Number 17.
Overview
One of the misconceptions of many managers about empowerment is the notion that to empower
people they have to give away some of their power. However, effective leaders empower people to
be able to do what needs to be done. Studies show that empowering people enhances both job
satisfaction and organisation performance, measured in a variety of ways.
Empowering people is giving them the knowledge, skills, self-awareness, authority, resources,
opportunity and freedom to manage themselves and be accountable for their behaviour and
performance. If knowledge is power, then empowering people also means sharing knowledge with
them. Empowerment is necessary to create a learning organisation in which people can be creative
and innovative. Effective leaders transfer credit for achievement to their followers or group
members.
Inspiring the organisation and its stakeholders with a clear vision and compelling sense of purpose is
a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for the development of an organisation that can learn,
adapt, and respond effectively to change. Empowerment, providing motivated employees with the
responsibility and authority to implement the vision is equally important.
The impact of empowerment
Study after study finds that when employees have more control – when they help to define their
goals and hours and when they participate in decision-making – their job satisfaction rises (Myers,
1993).
A positive relationship has been established between participation, satisfaction, motivation, quality,
productivity and performance (Hollander and Offerman, 1990). Peter Turney found that
empowered employees have a sense of ownership and responsibility, satisfaction in their
accomplishments, a sense of control over what and how things are done, and knowledge that they
are important to the organisation.

2. Actions and behaviours that constitute empowerment
Supporting people to help them to become more aware of their strengths and limitations,
preferences, interests and motivational drives, values, beliefs and attitudes
Delegation of challenging tasks and authority to make decisions and take action
Stimulating people’s intellects, imagination and intuition, questioning the status quo, and getting
them to do likewise
Providing the opportunity, resources and support for people to perform
Sharing knowledge and rewarding learning and well as performance
Coaching and training for skills acquisition and improvement
Allowing and encouraging self-determination and autonomy – the freedom of people to manage
themselves
Acceptance of responsibility (sense of duty and obligation) and accountability
Potential pitfalls
1. The leader may becoming too laissez faire and lose control
2. People whose goals are not closely aligned with the organisation may go off on a tangent
3. Inexperienced groups, who are encouraged to groupthink without some guidance, may become
dysfunctional or come to unhealthy conclusions. Teams need some structure and process to
empower them.
4. Empowerment needs to come with accountability, otherwise people may take on extra freedom
without taking on responsibility
Barriers to empowerment:
5.
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bureaucracy
risk aversion
the need to control others
fear of loss of control
lack of trust
the skill and time required to do it
Empowerment and culture
What’s in it for the staff?
Empowerment influences and reflects the organisational culture. For empowerment to work the
organisation needs to value it. When uncertainty avoidance is high, employees prefer goals, policies,
procedures and assignments to be precisely spelt out. When uncertainty avoidance is low, people
tolerate unclear structure in relation to roles and procedures. In most organisations, for
empowerment to work, management need to clarify team goals, roles and procedures. The cultural
norms need to be taken into account and empowerment planning adapted.

3. Empowerment in practice
The basic organisational requirements for successful empowerment are a clear vision, mission and
challenge, openness and teamwork, individual goals aligned clearly to the vision, with clear
boundaries for decision-making and clear task responsibility, mutual support and a sense of security.
A useful approach to empowering staff focuses on achieving several situations:
1. Win-win agreements whereby followers satisfy with own needs, goals and aspirations by
achieving what is expected of them at work. This is done by ensuring a clear mutual
understanding and commitment regarding expectations in five areas:
a. Specifying desired results
b. Setting guidelines
c. Identifying and providing available resources
d. Defining and agreeing accountability and how results will be evaluated
e. Clarifying and delivering the consequences in terms of reward and benefit
2. Coaching, sponsorship, mentoring, providing learning and development opportunities,
recognition of learning new competencies, and taking ownership of employee development
3. Self-management – people manage themselves according to the agreement. The leader
provides help and support, together with the necessary organisational structures and systems.
Peopleappraise themselves according to the agreed results criteria
4. The character traits associated with a genuine desire for other people’s accomplishment and
success:
a. Integrity
b. Maturity
c. success
5. Skills of communication, planning and organisation, problem-solving
Empowerment, risk and resistance
Take into account the great love and great achievements involve risk.
The need for control dictates the extent to which empowerment is possible, some employees may
abuse the increased power they gain; some may not have the desire or aptitude for the increased
responsibility. Managers may resist empowerment as they will see it as taking power away from
them. Junior managers and non-managerial employees may resist empowerment because the fear a
lack of support from theirbosses when they fail. They may also fear failure itself if they perceive a
culture of blame.
Empowerment, knowledge management and creativity
Empowering people means sharing knowledge with then. This means people need to have access to
lessons learned. Leaders should participate in development programmes, mentor high-potential
managers, and have senior managers share their mistakes and what they learned, and promote
people who actively share knowledge to help the whole organisation.

4. Employees must feel sharing knowledge is part of their job and that it is recognised and rewarded.
Many leaders reward performance, but not learning. Knowledge management is about people not
IT. It is about learning, communication, using knowledge from various sources and developing a
culture of knowledge sharing. Effective leaders share knowledge and information across the
organisation and encourage informal sources of information (Dess and Picken, 2000).
There are some further implications for leadership. Creative people’s bosses must welcome
disagreement and contrary views, using empathy and suspending judgement. Creative people must
be made accountable for the changes they suggest. Creative ideas must reach the decision makers.
In addition, those who are expected to implement creative ideas must be involved in the creative
thinking process, with flexibility in applying them. All of this is required to create and reinforce a
culture of creativity. For example, group creative activity requires a participative leadership style.
Further reading:
Chris Argyris (2000), Flawed advice and the management trap. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
K. Blanchard, J. P. Carlos and A. Randolph (1995), Empowerment takes more than a minute. San
Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.
William C. Byham (1988), Zapp! The lightening of empowerment.Pittsburgh, PA: Development
Dimensions International Press.