Empowerment.
One of the most over-used, warmed-over leadership terms uttered daily. Leaders high and low espouse their expertise in empowering teams to deliver. Some are very good at it, fostering high-performance teams who deliver great results. Others, though, only think they are good at it but frustrate teams with micromanagement, apathy, vagueness, and randomization. Most anyone who has been around the block has seen both good and bad empowerment examples. As for me, I’ve not only seen it, I’ve committed both the good and bad. It took me years to understand that empowerment isn’t just about delegating tasks to be performed. True empowerment is about entrusting individuals with problems to be solved and supporting them in the process. A high-performance empowered team owns problems or missions and is supported by a leader who provides clarity, gives guidance, and resolves only those issues the team can’t resolve on their own. To put some meat on this, I like to think of empowerment as systematic, with four critical steps needed to ensure its success. I call this intentional empowerment.
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“We just don’t work as a team!” Janet, a group manager for a large insurance company, was complaining to Larry, her human resources consultant. “Everyone just seems to do their own thing, they don’t share information, don’t try to help each other, and don’t seem to care about anyone else’s problems. What we need is a team building offsite!” Janet and Larry decided to put together a two-day offsite for the team at a resort about two hours away from work. Janet wanted immediate focus on the problem so Larry worked double-time to put together the event to be held later in the month. Larry put together an agenda full of trust-building exercises, ice-breakers, and brainstorming sessions on how the team could work better together.
What we learned was more than what we had anticipated; not necessarily about their purchases, but about how they worked and the importance of urgency versus importance in their jobs.
As an individual contributor, Joe was praised by his management for his speed in delivering results. His management was so enamored with his ability to get things done quickly that he was promoted to a leader role over a team of ten. Joe’s speed in taking action carried over into his decision making. He saw making decisions fast as a sign of getting “real work done,” versus sitting around talking about things. “Great leaders don’t have all the facts,” he would say to his team, as justification for moving forward without a good understanding of a decision’s implications. Joe’s team learned to just say, “Yes, Sir,” and do their best to execute what Joe wanted done by the time expected. His impulsive decision making came to a head with a new hire named Greg.
So many attributes contribute to a leader earning respect. Words like action-oriented, courageous, and charismatic are frequently used when describing a great leader. But what about when attributes like credibility, integrity, and effort are inconsistent or nonexistent? Quite simply, followers won't want to follow the leader. Why Don't They Follow Me? describes 12 lessons that every leader needs to learn:
Are you diving or merely surviving as a leader when it comes to getting others to follow you? See more about the 12 leadership lessons to boost your leadership skillls and get people to want to follow you in Why Don't They Follow Me?
Think empowerment and delegation are one in the same? Or maybe you think empowerment equals a frustrating "dump and run". For empowerment to be most effective, it needs to be intentional by specifying the following:
Are you diving or merely surviving as a leader when it comes to empowerment? See what Rosa Parks, Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman, and Napoleon Bonaparte have to say about intentional empowerment in Behind Gold Doors-Five Legends Offer the Keys to Empowering Leadership.
Excerpted from The Project Management Advisor - 18 Major Project Screw-Ups And How To Cut Them Off At The Pass (Prentice Hall, 2004)
Some time back I had a situation where two employees of mine were looking for me to cut them some slack on a commitment that they made but didn’t deliver upon. They threw every lame excuse in the book at me; it was one excuse of “my dog ate my homework” after another. After their lobbying me I decided to not cut them any slack; they didn’t meet a commitment because they didn’t perform. In both situations, I am pretty sure that both of these employees wanted to chuck me out of the highest window they could find. Well, I guess I'll just need to stay away from tall buildings, because I did the right thing.
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When project teams work in perfect harmony it's like music to the project manager's ears. Each project team member knows what they need to contribute to the project, knows when they have to perform, understands what other project team members are doing on the project, and knows what it takes to be successful. Get this ebook see how to get your project teams to gel and deliver results. Buy PC | Kindle | iTunes | Nook
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April 2024
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