#438: How Empowering Leaders Stop "Doing" and Start "Inspiring"

The typical manager in a hierarchical organisation has a quite different perception of their role than the manager in an empowered organisation. In a hierarchy, the manager sees themselves as the decision-taker, the rule-giver, and the problem-solver. In an empowered set-up, all these roles can pass to the team, leaving the manager to play a new and different role.

So, here are 7 new roles that the ex-hierarchical leader can now play...

01. Helping Others Change

When you change from top-down control to bottom-up empowerment, many people are affected. Senior managers may worry about the re-distribution of power. Employees may wonder if this means more work for them. And customers may seriously wonder if they will get the same service as before. Managing change successfully becomes a key skill of the empowering manager.

02. Question 01

How might you reassure a senior manager’s doubts about empowerment? Or an employee’s or a customer’s?

03. Creating the Right Environment

In his first training session at Manchester United, the team's newly-recruited star player, Eric Cantona, asked his manager, Alex Ferguson, for 2 players. Ferguson wanted to know why. Cantona replied, "To practise". Ferguson agreed, and after watching them work moves out together, turned to his coach and said, "You know, this is what management is all about, creating the right environment for them to help one another."

04. Question 02

What would you do to create the right environment for your team to work together more?

05. The Leader Is the Team's Biggest Fan

One of the key roles of the empowering manager is to be the bridge between the team and people outside the team. He or she needs to be a master communicator, able to move effortlessly around all the different styles of communicating, from one-to-one motivating conversations to team talks, from listening actively to influencing stakeholders such as senior management.

06. Question 03

What does an “empowering communication plan” look like? How would you meet with different groups?

07. Grow Talent

In empowered organisations, teams get to grow up. They have more power, have a strong sense of "who we are", and are able to resolve conflict themselves. Jack Welch, when CEO of General Electric, did exactly that with his team of top managers. "My main job was developing talent. I was a gardener providing water and other nourishment to our top 750 people."

08. Question 04

State 3 things you could do to develop the talent in your team.

09. Be Like a Pollen-Gathering Bee

Walt Disney was once asked by a little boy touring his studios, "Do you draw Mickey Mouse?" "No, I don't," he replied. "Then do you think up all the jokes?" "No, I don't". "So, Mr Disney, what do you do?". After a moment's thought, Disney replied, "Well, I think of myself as a little bee. I go from one studio to another and gather pollen and stimulate everyone. I'm a bee with pollen."

10. Question 05

How would you carry out the role of “a bee with pollen” in your team?

11. From Cop to Coach

Management guru, Tom Peters, coined the phrase "from cop to coach" to describe the new role of the empowering manager. The change takes them...

a. from nay-sayer to yea-sayer

b. from restrainer to helper

c. from work scheduler to work co-ordinator

d. from controller to releaser

e. from one of them to one of us.

12. Question 06

Give 3 examples of the manager’s role as a “cop” and 3 changes when the role becomes that of “coach”.

13. They Manage, You Lead

Leadership means getting results through people and that is where the focus of the empowering manager lies: breathing life into the vision of "why we're working here"; creating a climate in which others are prepared to take risks; and in the process creating more leaders in the team.

14. Question 07

How is managing a team different from leading a team? What are the differences that a manager has to adopt?

15. A Final Word

The role of the empowering leader requires a new way of looking at what "management" means. It can mean new skills, new assumptions about people, and a whole new way of looking at work.

What Next?

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