The Missing Ingredient For Employee Empowerment
Dr. Tim Baker
Leadership Development and Change Management Specialist with 27+ years of experience in leadership, change, and performance management.
If all your team members were empowered, using sensible independent judgment, and displaying appropriate initiative, what difference would that make? What difference would it make to team performance? What difference would it make to morale, engagement, and job satisfaction? What if you could make empowerment work?
There’s a plethora of popular management books and leadership development programs brimming with tactics and methods to inspire employees to be more proactive. These practices are mostly ineffective, however. Why?
Conventional empowerment methods sidestep two workplace relationships. It’s these two relationships that hold the key to solving the employee empowerment puzzle. The interaction between the leader and the team members is one of these crucial relationships. The other is the relationship between the jobholder and the work they are tasked to do.
Popular management advice assumes that the employment relationship and the way jobs are designed aren’t factors in generating greater empowerment. So, the stock standard recommendations we read and hear about are tactics and methods to coax the employee to take more control and responsibility for their work. These well-meaning “solutions” usually fail because they miss the point. The way the manager and employee interact and the way the employee interacts with their work are dodged. But they hold the key to success.
The post-Covid-19 environment and the renewed interest in working remotely are a timely opportunity for a rethink about employee empowerment.
How can managers and employees collaborate to promote—not inhibit—enterprise? How can jobs be redesigned to foster employee initiative?
These two questions demand our attention now. I deal with them both in Breaking the Proactive Paradox.
The main barrier to breaking the proactive paradox is the conventional working relationship between manager and employee, often referred to as the “psychological contract.” The traditional psychological contract is characterized by a clear demarcation of responsibility; managers think, and employees do. Yes, but that’s all changed now, I hear you say. You think so? I think not.
Although the long-established employment relationship is changing slowly, the beliefs and expectations employees and managers have of each other are deeply entrenched. These ingrained beliefs put the brakes on change. What’s more, powerful vested interest—such as trade unions and employer groups—perpetuates the them and us employment relationship.
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Dr. Allan Lee and colleagues conducted a meta-study that found that while empowerment didn’t have much effect on routine tasks, it does improve creativity. When taking more control and responsibility for their work, the employee feels safer expressing their creativity at work. What’s more, the research shows that empowered employees were more willing to help their colleagues, volunteer for extra assignments, and likely to support the business beyond their job responsibilities.
Aaron De Smet, a senior partner at McKinsey, challenges the myth that empowering employees means leaving them alone. The “helicopter boss,” who swoops in to fix problems when things go wrong, isn’t empowering. Neither is micromanaging.
De Smet suggests that to truly empower others, leaders should give employees the space to experience some autonomy, but also hold them accountable if problems arise. I agree. He recommends leaders avoid fixing issues and instead ask questions or offer options when employees come looking for help.
Genuine empowerment requires leaders to be involved, to be of service, to coach and mentor, to guide, to inspire—it means frequent, highly involved interactions, just of a different nature than the autocratic and controlling style.
This is an extract from my latest book, Breaking the Proactive Paradox: Maximizing Performance Through Empowerment.
Join me on Friday 25 February from 10am to 10:30am AEST for 30-minutes on a special broadcast (free-of-charge): Breaking the Proactive Paradox.
Dr Tim Baker is a thought leader in leadership development and performance management, best selling author, and international consultant. having consulted across 21 industries over 18 years, Tim has discovered what makes people tick. To find out more, go to WINNERS-at-WORK Pty Ltd.