11/16/2006
Do You Empower Your Employees?
Empowering employees means a certain amount of letting go is necessary on your part as a manager. Nowadays it seems as though more and more people talk about empowering others to move forward in their career, which in turn, helps you in yours.
Why is it important? The short answer: because you want to keep the talented staff you hired. A big reason people leave their jobs in search of something newer and better is because they don’t feel like they’re a part of the loop, challenged enough, or respected.
Why should you bother? Well, aside from the reason I just mentioned about retaining talented staff, it offer some benefits to you:
- Delegating assignments to your staff gets you away from some of the grunt work.
- Since your subordinates are making the decisions, there will be fewer interruptions with issues of lesser importance.
- When employees feel empowered, they are more motivated to find solutions to problems rather than come to you with all the problems.
The key thing to remember is to establish guidelines for accountability, responsibility, and authority, and let employees get on with what they were hired to do.
So how come there are still so many managers that don’t do this?
- Fear/Ego
- Lack of trust in the relationship
- They’re just bat-$#@%-crazy and don’t care
- Fear/Ego
- Lack of trust in the relationship
- They’re just bat-$#@%-crazy and don’t care
Managers (both good and bad) need to realized the potential benefits to the company: there is a quicker turnaround time in the decision making process when employees have the authorization to take action. When empowered, they have the confidence to speak up and take action. Empowered employees are motivated to do more!
If you’re already doing this with your people, fantastic. But, if you’re reluctant, you need to give your people the benefit of the doubt (provided that they are relatively good workers) and give them the freedom to do their jobs. People can only go above and beyond when they have the authority to do so. This will boost their confidence as well as bolster trust and respect in the work relationship. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at what they can accomplish.
If you’re already doing this with your people, fantastic. But, if you’re reluctant, you need to give your people the benefit of the doubt (provided that they are relatively good workers) and give them the freedom to do their jobs. People can only go above and beyond when they have the authority to do so. This will boost their confidence as well as bolster trust and respect in the work relationship. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at what they can accomplish.
