Empower Others
- Claire Platt
- Mar 5
- 3 min read
When you choose to lead through empowering others, you will find yourself in a truly win-win scenario.
Firstly, by empowering members of your team, you will be enabling others to lead on priorities or projects on your behalf, therefore reducing your workload, and with your guidance and support, developing their expertise and confidence, and broadening their experience.
Secondly, by choosing to trust your colleagues to lead on important priorities, you will actually be strengthening their engagement. In a study of more than 7000 employees, those with a high level of empowerment were proven to be at the 79th percentile of engagement, compared to the others who were rated as only at the 24th percentile*. This drastic difference shows the impact empowerment has on engagement in the workplace.
So, how do you go about empowering others?
The starting point for this is an assessment of your team.
Who might have untapped potential?
Who is ambitious and hungry to learn?
Is there a quiet person that might previously been overlooked or underestimated?
Is one of your colleagues struggling with their workload and responsibilities, and needs more guidance and support?
This assessment will enable you to plan for ways in which you can develop your team. Each colleague may need a slightly different level of support and guidance from yourself, or other senior leaders in your team. However you choose to empower your colleagues there are some clear strategies to adopt, and things to avoid:
Do: | Don't: |
Explain the task or priority clearly, and provide guidance and support initially. This might include offering opportunities to shadow you, providing scaffolded support etc. | Delegate a task or priority without clear explanation or offer of support |
Ensure that your colleague has the required time to complete the tasks set. | Overload |
Trust your colleague to then work on this priority independently. Agree periodic review meetings with them. | Constantly check up on the progress - this will undermine confidence |
Ensure that there is some flexibility in the planned approach, and room for adjustments to be made along the way. | Be rigid in terms of process or timescales. |
Ensure that you have created the culture where there are opportunities for your colleague to raise concerns or come to you for guidance and support when this is needed. | Don't be too busy or too remote. Your team members will need to come and check progress with you from time to time. |
Ensure that you recognise and praise the small steps of progress, or tasks accomplished, along the way. | Forget to pay attention to the progress of the project. |
Ensure that your colleague feels that they are able to independently make decisions. | Don't expect your colleagues to check every decision with you. |
If your employee makes a mistake, use this as a learning opportunity. Coach them so that they are able to learn how to do better next time. | Don't reprimand your colleague for making a mistake. This will erode their confidence and will cause procrastination or lack of action. |
If you adopt the approaches suggested above, you will find that you are building the top conditions for empowerment:
Fostering an environment of trust and psychological safety
Building employee confidence with recognition and praise
Offering flexibility in work arrangements
Asking employees for feedback and actioning it
Supporting professional growth with coaching and delegation
The benefits of empowering others:
The empowering leadership style has many advantages for employees, leaders, and entire organisations when implemented correctly:
Stronger relationships — A recent psychological study found a link between the empowering style and feelings of trust toward leaders.
Higher productivity levels — The same study found empowered employees were more motivated and able to focus on their work more effectively.
Better organisational resilience — When your people perform well, so does your organisation. That means more success and, therefore, more opportunities to offer your staff.
More job satisfaction — Team members are happier when they can achieve good results and enjoy healthy professional relationships.
More innovation — A psychological study by Harvard Business Review discovered teams were more creative when they worked for empowering leaders.
Lower turnover rates — Better employee-manager relationships increase retention. In a recent study 91% of people who indicated their workplace was good said they could trust their team leader.
A positive workplace culture — When your leadership team fosters employee empowerment, they also show they value trust, independent thought, and collaboration.
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