Sunday, December 26, 2010

The Key to Empowerment

Many of today’s leaders, companies and organizations believe that they are empowering their employees and colleagues to make decisions on their own. Yet when a wrong decision is made, the employee gets yelled at or is reprimanded. The outcome is that empowerment dies at that moment.

The key to making empowerment successful is to allow the person to make the mistake and in a calm, helpful manner teach them or train them on the better way to accomplish the task. Mistakes are the building blocks of growth.

It is very easy to spot an enterprise that empowers people. A classic example is when you check out of a hotel and there issomething appearing on your bill that you did not pay for or order. The front desk person has two options. They take it offyour bill right away or they say, “let me check with my manager.” When a person has to check with their superior and cannot make the decision on their own, you know that empowerment is lacking.

In the end, the key to successfully empowering employees comes down to two things: great training and the confidence ofthe leader.