Empowerment Leadership

Empowerment Leadership

Unlike traditional leadership, "empowerment leadership" is about empowering others as a result of your presence. Empowerment leadership is also about ensuring that the impact of your leadership continues during your absence.

One of the most important assets that empowerment leadership must have is trust. With trust you create the conditions for your employees to be fully aware of their own capacities and strengths. The more trust you build, the more likely you are to practice this kind of leadership.

THE CORE DRIVERS OF TRUST
Trust has three core drivers: authenticity, logic and empathy:

AUTHENTICITY: People tend to trust you when they believe that they interact with the real you.
LOGIC: People tend to trust you when they have confidence in your judgment and competence.
EMPATHY: People tend to trust you when they feel that you care about them.

When trust is lost, it can almost always be traced back to damage in one of the above three drivers.

YOUR TRUST WOBBLE
At times when trust breaks down, or fails to gain real traction, it's usually the same driver that has gone wobbly on us (Editor: ~make you feel uncertain/insecure) - authenticity, empathy, or logic. We call this driver a "trust wobble". Simply stated, this is the driver that is most likely to fail you. Everyone, it turns out, has a trust wobble.

To identify your wobble, think of the last moment when you were not trusted as much as you wanted to be. If you had to choose from three of our trusted drivers, would you say was going wobbly to you in this situation? Do you feel skeptical that you misrepresent a part of yourself or your story? If so, that's a matter of authenticity. Do your skeptics feel that you might prioritize your own interests? If so, that's a matter of empathy. Are you skeptical about the accuracy of your analysis or your ability to carry out ambitious plans? If so, that's a logic problem.

To be a truly empowering leader, you need to know where you are wobbly, not only in your relationships with others, but also in your relationships with yourself. Once after you have identified your "wobble," you can take steps to overcome it.

Source: Frei F.X., Morriss A. 2020. "Begin with Trust". Harvard Business Review. May–June 2020 Issue.

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Paramathmuni srinivas Kumar
India

Relationship with Yourself and Wobble

I think it is relationship with oneself that holds the key. Here the belief system of the leader comes into play. Is that person identifying him/herself at the physical level, or at intellectual level, or at emotional level, and so on and so forth...
The effectiveness with regard to trust will increase with the level at which we are identifying ourself I suppose.
For example: if one identifies oneself at the physical level then the level of trust will be less than if one one identifies oneself at the intellectual level, so on and so forth.

Maurice Hogarth
Consultant, United Kingdom

Logic of Emotional Trust or Empowerment for Leaders

Hmmm.
At the risk of being accused of making this forum political I would question the "logic" aspect of trust as noted.
A lot of people trust President Trump. Many on the basis of "empathy", believing that his actions are due to his caring about them and "authenticity", believing they 'know' him. However, the displayed erratic and contradictory nature of his decisions and comments must make these believer's trust in his "judgement and competence" a matter of emotional 'logic' rather than rational logic.
So, without disputing the three core drivers; it would seem that "empowerment", as referenced here, can exist because of false beliefs as well as true beliefs?
This is not my understanding of the nature of "empowerment". Empowerment is self actioned, taken not given. Yes, a leader-manager creates the atmosphere that enables individuals to take responsibility, show initiative etc. In reality this may be more because of a "bring me solutions not problems" mindset; rather than from structured delegation of authority against responsibilities. So, many individuals are insufficiently aware so as to take advantage of such opportunities, merely passing the 'monkey' from their own back to their managers'; to mutual dissatisfaction. Leadership, in the management sense, is, of its nature empowering and about presence and if a person is not trusted they will not be a leader, regardless of their appointment. To use "empowerment" within the term, as if a title, would seem, therefore, to be a redundancy.

Gandhi Heryanto
Management Consultant, Indonesia

Trust and Identity

@srinivas: you are right to argue that leadership is a physical, intellectual skill or identity set that people already have inside, but they need to learn how to bring it out.
How you bring it out, that's how people will identify and know you. How do you manage your identity (authenticity, logic and empathy) will form trust for the people you lead.

Gandhi Heryanto
Management Consultant, Indonesia

Drivers for Empowerment and Trust

@Maurice Hogarth: I agree that empowerment is self-actioned, taken not given. Empowerment is like energy, something that leaders can help unlock to free the potential of their followers. How leaders can help them use their freedom of responsibility requires trust. In order for trust to be established and maintained, we need drivers, namely authenticity, logic and empathy. Of course, besides trust the positive relationship between empowering leadership and employee psychological empowerment, will be significant if the leader has a good relationship with their followers.

K R Sethuraman
Professor, Malaysia

Empowerment Needs Direction, Tools and Motivation

To empower others in the team that one leads, one has to
i) Show them the direction for growth,
ii) Provide them the tools that are needed to grow effectively and
iii) Motivate the team to learn, grow and empower themselves.
The team should trust the leader to accept the direction and try out the tools for growth and empowerment. Lack of trust would also greatly hinder effective motivation.
(This is based on my successes and failures in empowering junior medical staff in my team since 1985).

Cecilia Calderon Kohler
Accountant, Chile

Empoderamiento, Confianza-lógica y Empatía

Empoderarse a sí mismo, es confiar en si mismo, es decir, se cree capaz y competente.
Y, esos factores se comunican por si solos, se manifiestan a los demás naturalmente.(autenticidad)
Se traduce esto, en que infunde confianza (lógica)
Y la empatía se traslucirá en su persona atrayendo a los que bajo sus órdenes estén.

Translation by 12manage:
Empowering yourself is trusting yourself, that is, you think yourself capable and competent.
And, those factors communicate by themselves, they manifest themselves to others naturally. (Authenticity)
This translates into instilling confidence (logic)
And the empathy will show in his person attracting those who are under his orders.