Manning and Curtis (2015) comprehensively discuss three connected facets of leadership: leadership authority, empowerment, and the quality imperative. While each have distinct qualities and characteristics, they are closely connected. Of these three, empowerment is the focus of two peer-reviewed articles examined for correlation and contrast in this paper. Manning and Curtis refer to “Robert Cole, influential author and educator” (2015, p.177) and his series of principles that describe empowerment in the workplace. The principles include, “Trust in people; Invest in people; Recognize accomplishments; Decentralize decision making; and View work as a cooperative effort” (Cole as cited by Manning and Curtis, 2015, p. 177). Employee empowerment retains a critical role in the success of leaders and organizations.
Empowerment Article Comparison
“Employee empowerment: from managerial practices to employees’ behavioral empowerment” (Boudrais, Gaudreau, Savoie, and Morin, 2009, p. 625) is the first of two articles researching the relationship of empowerment and leadership. The second article, “Employee empowerment, employee attitudes, and performance: testing a causal model” (Fernandez and Modogaziev, 2013, p. 490), published a few years later, adds to the growing research on the subject.
Both articles confirm, “A growing body of evidence suggests that employee empowerment can be used to improve job satisfaction, organizational commitment, innovativeness, and performance”
In the paradigm of management, empowerment is viewed as losing authority and control over people and resources. Generally, people resent being driven, controlled and being seen as part of company equipment. This breeds apathy in employees towards the organisation’s intents in the market place and destroys accountability.
ZAPP The Lightning of EMPOWERMENT, by William C. Byham Ph.D. and Jeff Cox presents a story of different problems that managers/supervisors face and how they deal with the problems. The book shows how an autocratic supervisor would deal with a problem compared to a participative supervisor would handle the problems. The story shows the contrast between a supervisor that ZAPPS (empowers) her employees and a supervisor that SAPPS his employees by his interactions and management style with the employees.
Empowerment addresses the power inequality inherent in subordination. Food and Beverage manager Michelle Cook is above Executive chef Ritchie Gravy in formal authority but she is subordinate because Ritchie is in a relational position of power over her. Empowerment, therefore, concerns releasing the shackles placed on floor staffs by kitchen staffs who have power in Café Hip. In this case, as management is empowering the
The single most important component associated with managing a successful organization, entails the empowerment of employees. People that are empowered are able to make smart decisions without always having to rely on authority, to point them in the right direction. Creating an empowered organization involves interest in the workplace; minimal absence from work, high retention rates; loyal and motivated team members; as well as efficient results and effective communication amongst team members. In the book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Empowerment is an important tool for progression and FWD needs to exercise it often when expecting employees to work together towards a global objective. Empowerment can be defined as providing employees the chance to exercise autonomy in making decisions (Vogt, 1997), which is rarely implemented at FWD.
In many ways, empowerment embodies principles effective managers and leaders have practiced for years. Two new driving forces in business, increased diversity and high-speed change, magnify the need for empowerment. Empowering people is now indispensable for effective personal productivity and maximum team success.
Capital Power is an independent power producer, based in Edmonton, Alberta, but with operations across North America. It has an aggressive growth strategy with the goal of tripling its
After undergoing a dramatic and angst-ridden season, the Victorian Korfball Senior Team is in need of significant transformation if there is any hope of fostering a high performance culture in the new season. Due to their history of conflict, the players in their present state lack any indications of cohesion. Selecting the right athletes for the new team will play a significant role in the baseline level of cohesion. Each of these areas can be addressed through a method of careful analysis via the Multidimensional Model of Leadership (Chelladurai & Saleh 1978), implementation of an appropriate intervention and the structuring of a consultative leadership environment.
Empowerment is an issue that is imperative to the change process. We touched on the idea of empowerment while exploring power, and politics in the workplace. Empowerment is important in regards to The Heart Of
Leadership is something that we are all born with because we are all born. Therefore, who is a leader and who is not depends on who really wants to be a leader and who does not. Leadership is a skill and so it can be learned. As anything that is learned it demands practice and practice to be the best. It would not be something that will happen in a matter of a day. There are multiple elements that make a leader. Collaboration is a key element for successful teamwork. Therefore, a leader must always be in the look for ways to foster collaboration. Creating trust within the team, support face-to-face collaboration, transfer responsibilities when making decisions, and ultimately teach other how to be leaders. All of this is not done if it is not done from the bottom of your own heart.
Empowerment goes beyond delegation by enabling individuals and teams to achieve results critical in today’s competitive markets where speed, response and customer satisfaction are the standard. Empowerment is a tool used by leadership to allow a team or an individual freedom and creativity to achieve operative or strategic goals. Final results or milestones are the measurements used to gauge success and the manager’s trust is key when empowering staff. Nevertheless, empowerment emphasizes outcomes where delegation emphasizes compliance to procedure or policy. Looking at the slight differences I feel you can delegate simple daily tasks, but to reach your organizational goals you must empower your staff when you delegate. Empowerment is seen when the staff takes ownership of the delegated task (McConnell, 1995).
Employee empowerment is defined as giving employees a degree of autonomy and responsibility for decision-making. The benefits are
According to Hyde (2008), “Culture is determined by how people behave, and the only way to change culture is to change behaviors” (p. 6). A key aspect of changing behavior is enabling (empowering) employees to make decisions and create change within their work scope. By giving employees the power to make changes not only improves their morale, but also benefits the company in which they work by increasing their productivity. According to Marshall, et. Al (2006), “Allowing employees to make decisions increases their job satisfaction and sense of responsibility and translates into improvements in the quality and timeliness with which duties are performed, freeing management for more significant matters” (p. 39). By giving decision making authority to followers, transformation leaders are using what Bass (1991) referred to as psychological empowerment. In other words, empowerment influences follower outcomes.
Employee empowerment can be described as giving employees' accountability and ability to make choices about their work without managerial authorization. Good managers are expected to
In many companies, operational employees also need information to handle tasks and make decisions that were assigned to supervisors. This trend, called empowerment, gives employees more