The benefits of empowering people are many. They include higher levels of employee satisfaction, a sense of shared purpose, and optimal collaboration. Team leaders and Manager’s know that there are huge benefits to be gained from empowering others.
As a manager, you can either choose to use your power to empower others or disempower others. Which do you think would bring greater benefits in achieving results?
Benefits Of Empowering Others
1. A Sense Of Community
Valuing the opinions and ideas of every employee is a foundation of empowerment. Workers should be encouraged to fine-tune their problem-solving skills. Patience and encouragement by management will produce a quality-conscious and self-sufficient workforce. Being a valued part of a work team is what empowerment is all about.
2. Performance
You’ve probably heard the saying practice makes perfect. Another way of looking at it is to say that empowering people improves performance. Changes in performance happen more quickly when people take action and start doing. By empowering others, you’ll improve the performance of your team.
3. Builds Loyalty
When you have a reputation as a manager or leader that gives people the opportunity to grow and develop, staff become incredibly loyal. They know you trust them and that you’ll go that extra mile when things get tough.
4. Energizes Others
Have you ever been part of a team or organization where people are incredibly energized and upbeat? If so, you were probably part of an organization that empowers people and lets them take care of their business. When people are energized, they find new ways of breaking down what might have been viewed as obstacles or challenges in the past.
5. Succession Planning
Managers and leaders are ambitious and aim to keep climbing the career ladder. Many managers and leaders want to ensure that when the time comes for them to move on, there are a group of people ready to step into their role. Empowering others is a way to ensure that this is the case.
6. Leadership Development
We learn by doing. We also learn more when things don’t quite work out as expected. Ask successful people when they learned most and they are likely to tell you about times when things didn’t turn out as they expected. When things don’t work out we take the time to reflect and wonder what we would do differently next time. When you empower, you take some risk and allow others to learn and develop by taking on a task or project.
7. Achieving Results
All managers and leaders are at the end of the day judged on the results they have achieved. Empowering others and leveraging the full range of skills, knowledge, experience and personal attributes at your disposal helps achieve the best results.
8. Motivation
When a manager or leader tells you the result that they want and leaves it to you to find out the best way to achieve it, chances are your motivation increases. When you empower someone you are essentially saying to them that you know they can do it and trust them to deliver the anticipated results.
9. No Micromanagement Needed
Realize that people are human, and mistakes are going to happen whether you’re micromanaging your team or not. In fact, mistakes may be more likely to happen when your staff is under the constant pressure of trying to perform perfectly for you!
When you empower your team members to make decisions and resolve conflicts on their own, you don’t have to deal with every single customer complaint or incorrect purchase order made. Your team will tackle it for you, saving your time and energy for the important, boss-sized tasks.
10. Recruitment And Retention
Attracting and retaining good people is a major challenge for many organizations. If you are known as a manager or leader who empowers others, you will start to attract the best and they will want to stay longer. I bet that you can think of a number of managers that you worked with who you stayed with longer than you expected. Simply because they kept your development needs in focus. Empowering others has huge benefits, so what will you do differently when it comes to empowerment?
