Leadership training and sales training Australia.

Well, here are some definitions of "empowerment" that you can find on the internet:

"Multi-dimensional social process that helps people gain control over their own lives."

"Psychological empowerment described as the vehicle for instilling motivated behaviour within organisations."

"Ensures people closest to a problem have the authority to make judgements on how to solve the problem or meet the need."

I was discussing with one of my colleagues what it would actually look like in an organisation if staff were empowered, what kind of behaviours would have to be in place?  We decided the foundation for empowerment within organizations is TRUST.  This sparked a search into what are the barriers to trust and empowerment and we found the following:

No purpose – if staff cannot see how their work contributes to a higher purpose whether for the organisation to achieve its goals, or for them to gain satisfaction knowing that they are doing something worthwhile, then this will prevent them from feeling empowered.

No protection – are your staff able to make the mistakes that they need to make in order to gain the experience necessary for success. Are their mistakes seen as learning and problem solving opportunities for their development or are they met with rebuke?

No permission – Although empowerment is about freedom created by trusting your staff to do their work, it cannot be done without guidelines.  Leaders need to provide guidelines and as such permission to undertake the role as needed within the reasonable boundaries of organisation values and goals.

No proficiency – Leaders need to be developers of people in order to ensure that they are able to be proficient in their roles.  Do your staff have the skills and motivation necessary to be exceptional in their role? What are you doing to ensure they have what they need?

Cultural analyses of some of our client organisations have revealed issues of control and blame.  If these are the behaviours that are consciously or unconsciously rewarded within an organisation then empowerment is going to be difficult to come by and probably only found in the lower levels of organisations.

A number of the ideas we present through our various workshops can actually target the four barriers to empowerment listed above.  I will get onto blogging about these this week so I can arm you with the skills necessary to become a more empowering leader.

In the meantime, have a think about these barriers and what evidence there is in your workplace that they exist and what might you do about them?