Enabling real empowerment

An empowered environment allows you take full advantage of the capabilities of your team. The notion is not for you to conceive, plan, and do everything yourself, but rather for you to encourage and coach others to achieve as much as they can. This allows you to do other things such as work on your business rather than in it.

You know that management isn’t an easy job, and you know that it’s really an entirely new career. So how can you empower your team so that you can be a highly successful manager? We believe that the answer to this question has at least three parts, all of which are designed to produce a condition of real empowerment.

First, you should create clear and powerful goals for everyone on your team. You also should have a keen interest in the achievement of these goals, and less interest in the precise ways by which those goals are accomplished (with some caveats, which we’ll explain).

Second, you must provide clear and consistent guidance to everyone on the team regarding the rules by which they must operate. Just as we all must obey the rules of the road when we drive, so too must your team members adhere to your guidelines and principles.

Third, you must be convinced that your team members meet some very specific conditions related to their competency, principles, and reliability. When they do, you can allow them to achieve their goals in their own way, as long as they stay within the boundaries.