Influence means that you are guiding people toward a way of acting that demonstrates integrity and concern for others. Influence means that you have inspired others how to meet their professional and personal goals. Influence occurs through the modeling of your behaviors (how you choose to handle key moments) and by empowering others for success.
When you empower others, you teach people to be successful without your being around. You teach them to get things done, make decisions, and take calculated risks….without your being around. You have established a culture that embraces divergent thinking, risk-taking, and decision making skills.
If a person is empowering, he/she will demonstrate several behaviors. Some of these can be: praising publicly and specifically, setting achievable goals, sharing company data, sharing responsibility for making decisions,, celebrating diversity, welcoming risk-taking, allowing people to make decisions in his/her absence and then backing up these decisions. Support is provided toward goal completion that is enough to give needed encouragement but not so much that it becomes micromanagement.
If a person works in an environment that is empowering, he/she will demonstrate several behaviors. Some of these can be: taking risks, solving problems with “out of the box” thinking, mentoring others, exceeding goals, enjoying work, and being extremely engaged in the company’s mission. These behaviors lead to accomplishment of the company’s goals.
Engagement means being involved in your work. It means participating in goal achievement. In a 2013 report which covered 2010 to 2012, Gallop reported that 52% of workers are disengaged and 18% are actively disengaged. This costs companies $450 B to $550 B in lost productivity. Imagine how these numbers could improve, if more leaders were empowering others for success.
We no longer function in an industrial economy, where decisions were made from the top down and people were expendable. We function in a knowledge economy, where people are a companies’ greatest assets…..its competitive advantage. If over 80% of our GDP is through services, how do we make people successful? We empower them.
Six principles of empowering leaders are as follows: have a vision for your organization, build and sustain trust, be humble, inspire commitment from followers, be organizational architects, and act from positive beliefs about people and situations.
What is your vision for your organization? Decide what you want to accomplish. Become passionate about this. Communicate clearly to your people. Inspire them to become passionate about the mission.
In order to build and sustain trust, make sure people can count on you. Follow through with what you say. Ensure your behaviors match your words. Look out for employees’ interests, as well as your companies’.
Show that you are humble. Acknowledge that you couldn't achieve your goals without your people. Take responsibility when things go wrong. Offer praise to others when thing go well. Ask for assistance when you need it. Make sure you have the right people in the correct roles.
If you are able to inspire commitment, you have accomplished one of the foundations to creating an empowering environment. Allow people to contribute meaningfully to their jobs and the things that affect them. Unleash creativity. Allow people to fail, and use that as a learning opportunity, not a bashing event.
In order to be an organizational architect, you need to treat the infrastructure as a foundation. Ensure that systems and processes are in place. Ensure that these are current and emulate best practices. Allow others to contribute to these systems.
One of the most important messages to send when creating empowerment is to act from positive beliefs about people and situations. We process information based on our personality, environment, and history. We filter information through our beliefs….our paradigms. Become self-aware and determine if you have experiences or beliefs that cause you to view people negatively. Once you can change that and view people positively, you will see people respond well. If you hold positive beliefs about people, you will encourage them to take risks. You will be okay with their making mistakes and learning from those. You will communicate your confidence in them, and they will respond with engagement, creativity, and commitment.
So, you are ready to look at the culture you've created. You want to be more empowering, as a leader. You recognize your success comes from the success of your people. How do you do this?
First, recognize that empowering people does NOT mean just giving them more work to do. The tasks need to be meaningful for the company and motivating for the individual. Second, recognize that you can’t just decide on Monday that you are going to empower your people on Tuesday. You have to assess their readiness. Assessment is accomplished by reviewing the importance of the task, considering the experience of the person, taking into account the willingness of the person to handle more responsibility, and your confidence in the person’s abilities.
Having a discussion with the person will gather this information. Be clear about your expectations. Then provide the necessary structure to help the person be successful. Most changes can be completed through the act of coaching.
Coaching consists of directive behavior as well as supportive behavior. Expectations and timelines are clear. Assistance is provided along the way, during the process. Expressed confidence in the person’s abilities continues throughout. Being open to different ways that the final product could look is important to empowerment.
When you realize that empowering others for success will lead to the success of your company/department, then you will begin to make a change in the corporate culture. Anyone can do this. Remember, everyone is a leader. You don’t have to have a title to make your corner of the world more empowering. Become self-aware and determine how you view people and situations. Recognize your comfort level for sharing information and praise. Learn your ease with accepting responsibility when things go badly and deviate from the plan. Talk with people about the changes you’d like to make. Determine those who are ready to participate in a different culture. Then, just begin! Remember, we learn much more from our failures than from our successes. The key is to just get started!
To learn more about empowering others for success and how to practice this understanding, contact Results Group, LLC at www.ResultsGroupLLC.com or 515-330-2866.
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