Team Empowerment

In many of the recent Leadership Seminars I have been leading we have a recurring theme about empowering our team. An empowered team builds a strong culture. An empowered team is motivated and can take performance to new levels. An empowered team can more quickly identify and solve for customer needs resulting in better service scores. Heck, your life as a leader is easier if you have an empowered team working with you than if you have a loyal team working for you. I don’t think empowering a team is as simple as snapping your fingers. You need to be a strong leader to be willing to trust the team and you need the right team to accept that responsibility. I think each of you are strong enough to truly empower your team, but wanted to share some thoughts on how I think we can accomplish this.

• Delegate to Develop- If you are dictating every aspect of your associated workday, you are not empowering anybody. If the team is coming to you for direction after every task, you have it all wrong. If you have to head every initiative for your team, you aren’t leading the team you are dragging them along with you. If you are truly going to unlock your team’s potential, you have to foster their development and the easiest way to do that is to delegate duties (important duties) to them. They cannot learn without the experience, they cannot grow without the challenges and they cannot appreciate the strategy you have laid out without giving them a broader view of the organization. None of this is possible without giving them meaningful tasks, projects or interactions to work on. I know as leaders we are always fearful of delegation, not out of lack of respect for the associate, but because we do not want to overwhelm or overwork them. Sorry, but if we are building future leaders some overwork or overwhelming is part of the plan. Don’t be afraid to try it
• Believe (and show it)- The first few times you are delegating things, there is going to some apprehension. Apprehension on your part over giving up control and apprehension on their part over their ability to handle the task. The last thing they need is for you to delegate to them and then immediately jump in and micro-manage it or just say “never mind, I will just do it”. If you are empowering the team, you have to trust them. You have to trust them and you have to demonstrate it. You have to demonstrate it each and every day. Might you have to clear some things up behind the scenes? Of course. Might you have to do some course correction along the way? Absolutely. But, you need to do that as a partner showing them the way, not the leader barking directions
• Understand that “empowerment” doesn’t mean “alone”- This piece is critical. The empowering of your team is not a free pass for them to do whatever they want. You are still in charge, your company has rules and your clients have some level of expectations of what you are delivering. Try to find ways to fence in that empowerment. Set targets to keep the team focused on the goal and to provide you an opportunity to stay connected (without micromanaging them). You need to understand that you might be pushing an associate outside of their comfort zone, so this isn’t just about keeping them somewhat reigned in. You also need to make sure that you are there to be their safety net. An empowered associate may find themselves in over their head (that is how they learn after all), so we need to be there to pull them back onto the right path and push them ahead

We have seen time and time again how an empowered team is stronger, quicker and more engaged. None of those attributes are a bad thing. A team demonstrating all of these traits are easier to manage and perform better over time. What is also important for us as individual leaders is that the more empowered the team, the more we can harness our individual strengths and continue to grow. Don’t be afraid to empower your team, the payback can be amazing!

Onward and Upward