Leading and empowering self and others

Leading and Empowering Self and Others
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Leading and Empowering Self and Others
Empowerment is one of the qualities of a great leader. According to De Janasz, Dowd and Schneider (2015), empowerment involves a process of a leader sharing their power with subordinates. Organization models are shifting from where an organization’s activities were simplified and preplanned to a more decentralized model. Organizations now operate in an environment of intense competition and rapidly developing hence it is important to have employees who can manage themselves. Empowering employees allows them to be more involved in an organization’s activities since they have to make decisions, this speeds up the activities of the organization. And when employees feel they are playing a bigger role in the company’s success, they feel more motivated hence putting in more effort in what they do. Empowerment enables employees to grow in their careers. It also creates an open working environment (De Janasz et al., 2015). However, empowerment could lead higher costs of hiring workers. It is a bit difficult to find workers who are effective in a decentralized business model (De Janasz et al., 2015).
According to Stuart Hayes (2011), empowerment is key to leadership. His video is very informative; he tries to explain the difference between a leader and a manager using the empowerment concept. He says leaders empower while managers control. Empowerment involves employees working autonomously while control involves employees working under a set of instructions.

Empowerment enables, builds and motivates employees. On the other hand, control aims to remove inconsistencies making employees more machine-like. Empowerment offers freedom to employees in four areas namely: time, tools, technique, and team. Stuart refers to a study by Cornell University that shows employees can work four times faster when given freedom in the four areas. When employees are empowered, they are not restricted, they become creative and find new ways of handling tasks. They could make instant decisions, speeding up processes which would have taken longer if the boss was to make the same decision. I agree with Stuart that hierarchy is a barrier to success for organizations.
Although empowerment seems effective, organizations are reluctant to adopt the concept. It is a difficult process to integrate into an organization. Employees have to be provided with information about the organization and its performance (De Janasz et al., 2015). Employees also have to be trained on how the organization, as a whole, is run. Above all, empowerment requires trust in the employees so if heads of an organization do not trust the employees; it becomes difficult for them to empower employees.
Although empowerment offers various challenges, in today’s business environment empowerment is essential and necessary to every organization.
References
De Janasz, S., Dowd, K. & Schneider, B. (2015). Interpersonal skills in organizations (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Hayes, Stuart (2011). How Leaders Empower, When Managers Control. YouTube. Retrieved 31 January 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9zCm2LarLA