1. Openness To New Ideas. When a work group manager is open and inviting about new ideas and opinions from team members, empowerment was significantly better. Often when employees come forward with new ideas the thing that people often hear from their manager is either, “If I wanted your opinion, I would have asked for it,” or “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I will take that under consideration.” The first response is simply expressing, “we don’t want or value your opinion.” The second is when managers that pretend to care and listen but never do anything with your idea. Both behaviors discourage empowerment. People will sometimes have excellent ideas and other times will have stupid ideas. Either way, taking the time to respectfully listen sends the message that people are valued and respected. Being open and inviting ideas from others will increase empowerment in your team.
2. Developing Others. If your employees never have good ideas, it’s possible that they lack knowledge, skills, expertise or experience. These people need to develop new skills. There is a very strong correlation between the emphasis a team has on development and high empowerment. Developing team members sends a message that employees are valued and the organization is willing to invest in them as people.
3. Supportive And Trusted Manager. The skills of a manager to gain the respect and support of the team members was another critical factor. If employees trusted their manager and felt the manager “had their back” and would support them, employees were more likely to feel empowered. We also found that when managers were effective in two-way communication and willing to make changes, these skills generated greater empowerment. Empowerment requires extra effort and energy from employees. When there is a low level of trust in a team leader, employees resist empowerment.
4. Recognition, Rewards And Encouragement. Those things that are rewarded are repeated. Empowerment requires team members to make some effort and take some risks. Those leaders who recognize and encourage employees when they see extra effort or risk taking get more of that behavior in the future. Leaders who were effective at showing appreciation had higher empowerment scores. Some teams are a recognition desert. I have often asked groups who among them recognize team members too often or show too much appreciation? Most people managers don’t recognize and reward others often enough.
5. Positive Work Environment. When the work environment was positive, where people felt valued and respected, empowerment was higher. When the work environment was full of conflict, where everything was a crisis and there was lots of finger pointing or blaming empowerment was much lower. Most everyone can identify a negative work environment versus a positive environment. Leaders need to bring a positive attitude to work and a desire to create a great working environment.
6. Giving Team Members Authority. When a team member has the authority to make a decision, they feel more empowerment. If they make a decision that gets reversed by their manager, the empowerment dissipates. Leaders need to make sure that employees are skilled and knowledgeable enough to make a good decision before they are given authority. The more control people have over their work and how it is done, the higher their sense of empowerment.
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