Why empowerment is important

Be more democratic by consulting your people on decisions that affect them, and relinquish responsibility to the team — while continuing to guide them to better solutions. Leaders who embed employee empowerment tools into their armory are more likely to inspire collaboration. Qualities such as communication skills, emotional intelligence and influencing capability are key.

Eliminate fear of failure and improve innovation and creativity by ensuring that employees are not fearful of making mistakes. By empowering people to make decisions, it follows that you should also accept that mistakes will be made. The important thing is to ensure that mistakes do not become elements for blame, but rather that they become learning experiences from which individuals and the team should benefit. Employee empowerment should help to innovate more rapidly and productively.

If people are afraid to make mistakes, willingness to try new things and innovate will deplete. By flattening the organizational hierarchy, you transfer accountability to the team. However, employees generally require a lot of support for this process to bed in.

Office politics will need to be dealt with, and rules of engagement kept simple to encourage the move from dependency on a manager to autonomous decision-making. To access these benefits, leaders should develop a strategy of behaviors that encourage autonomy, bravery and learning. It requires a transfer of responsibility and accountability, which can be as difficult for the leader to do as it is for the employee to experience.

Toggle navigation. The Importance of Empowering Employees. The importance of empowering employees is highlighted by reference to five big benefits that an empowerment strategy provides all organizations. Download this free eBook to learn how to overcome resistance to change. Download eBook now. Realize the importance of empowering employees with these five benefits The importance of empowering employees is clear when the benefits of empowering employees are understood.

Quality of work produced When given the autonomy that allows them to make a difference to product or service outcomes, employees will produce higher-quality work. Satisfied employees Various studies have shown that empowered employees are more satisfied in their work, and less likely to seek employment elsewhere. Collaboration grows With increased confidence, employees are more willing to share information and best practices with others. Productivity increases As confidence and self-esteem grows, and a more quality-focused and collaborative approach takes hold, productivity will increase.

Employee empowerment reduces costs Costs will be reduced across the organization: An empowered workforce is more satisfied with their job and career path, and staff turnover falls accordingly. Retention rates rise, training costs fall, and experience remains in-house.

Operations become more efficient and productivity rises. Solutions to customer complaints are found proactively, and customer loyalty increases. No one in an empowered company should be unproductive. When people find their work rewarding, they work harder and smarter. Empowerment encourages job satisfaction to become a top priority. Empowerment does not happen overnight.

It takes time to see the results of empowerment training. A belief that employees want to do a good job is essential.

Working with individuals to set professional goals will enhance the empowerment process. People will generally set higher goals for themselves than management would set for them. Empowerment involves management taking a proactive approach toward soliciting suggestions and ideas. Workers have many valuable time-management and money-saving ideas. Most people are willing to share their observations and thoughts if they feel safe enough to do so.

Management must nurture an environment in which employees are encouraged to use their own judgment and common sense. An empowered environment is reflected in the overall attitude, production level, customer satisfaction, and profitability of a company. Top management has the responsibility of setting the tone for lasting empowerment. Empowerment is more than a buzz-word, it is a commitment to the entire company working together as a team. Management and employees must open the lines of communication to efficiently and effectively empower one another to greater success.

Empowerment in business is built on a trusting, competent relationship between management and employees and between employees and customers. Michaels ,. Argyris, Chris. Branden, Nathaniel. Byham, William C. The Lightning of Empowerment. New York: Fawcett, Dover, Kyle. Finegan, Jay. Hellinghausen, Mary Ann.

Matejka, Ken. Potterfield, Thomas A. Ruoff, Mary. Tracy, Diane. You are allowing them to share the load, giving them the opportunity to lead themselves. It fosters an environment where people can understand their successes and learn from their failures. An environment of trust. How do you empower yourself in life? Do you set goals, record accomplishments, engage in opportunities to stretch your comfort zone?

What is the difference between empowering yourself and empowering other people? They come hand in hand! When you empower other people, you invest yourself not just your time. Some people find empowering others impossible, some find it easy. However, the process is one that can be learned.

It is common knowledge that we are all inspired by ourselves when others believe in our abilities and empower us, which encourages us to recognize our own true potential. When empowering another person, you impact that person, but not just them.

You are impacting the world and, ultimately, yourself. The outcome of any task is always improved by the lives and mindset of those who you lead. Empowering others is not just a phrase, it is a way. It is a way of changing lives. Hello dear reader! My name is Brigitte, and I was the blog team leader for this past semester.

I hope it sparked some interesting…. You might or might not know that most members during their AIESEC journey acquire many skills and develop their leadership capacity.

Our analysis yielded a few main results: first, empowering leaders are much more effective at influencing employee creativity and citizenship behavior i. Our meta-analysis compared the effects of leaders who were rated as more empowering by their direct reports with those who were rated are less empowering.

Leaders who were perceived as more empowering were more likely to delegate authority to their employees, ask for their input, and encourage autonomous decision-making. And they were more likely to have employees who were rated, by either their leader or colleagues, as being highly creative and good organizational citizens. Specifically, this type of leadership seems to encourage employees to generate novel ideas and think of new ways of doing things, and to help others in the workplace, volunteer for extra assignments, and be willing to support their organization outside of an official capacity.

We found these effects happened through two distinct psychological processes. First, employees who thought their leaders were more empowering were indeed more likely to feel empowered at work — they felt a greater sense of autonomy or control in their work, they felt that their job had meaning and it aligned with their values, that they were competent in their abilities, and that they could make a difference.

These feelings of empowerment helped to explain the effects of such leaders on both employee creativity and citizenship behavior. Empowered employees are more likely to be powerful, confident individuals, who are committed to meaningful goals and demonstrate initiative and creativity to achieve them.

They typically have the freedom to generate novel ideas and the confidence that these ideas will be valued. Second, employees were more likely to trust leaders who they perceived as more empowering. They had greater faith in their leaders and were more likely to put in effort without feeling that they would be exploited. This is not as intuitive as one might think. When a leader tries to empower employees, he or she asks them to take on additional challenges and responsibility at work.

But we found that when empowering leadership is also about mentoring and supporting employee development, this can create a trusting relationship. Like psychological empowerment, we found that this feeling of trust helped to explain the effects of empowering leadership on both creativity and citizenship.