When highly autocratic organizations attempt to shift to a more inclusive and empowering culture, leaders often get stuck on the idea that empowerment is all-or-nothing.
To make the change, they begin to give team members total control over many projects and initiatives.
Not surprisingly, team members not used to owning an entire project often flounder and disappoint.
Sometimes they lack the skills and acumen to oversee an entire project.
Other times, it is their lack of self-confidence that gets in the way.
But once they fail, leaders then conclude that empowerment is fraught with trouble and revert to directing work and overseeing its quality.
What’s missing is a key insight.
Empowerment operates along a continuum.
Leaders must choose where along this continuum they want to empower others.
How much guidance they decide to offer reflects how empowering they are. On the far-left side of the continuum is Total Empowerment.
Leaders have the option of handing off a project or decision without much more than a “Good luck.”
Total Empowerment is usually reserved for experienced team members with a track record for excellence.
It requires deep trust and confidence, usually earned over the course of many successful projects.
Just to the right of Total Empowerment are the Goals for the project.
What is the ultimate aim of the project, and how will those goals be measured?
Empowering leaders often set the stage with Goals and then turn the team member loose to finish the job.
But they can also take another step to the right and offer the team member their version of the Criteria for Success.
By articulating what defines success but still leaving it up to the team member regarding how to achieve the outcomes, leaders empower, but less so than handing a project off without any direction or just by conveying the goal set.
In the leader’s estimation, the team member may need more guidance than goals and success criteria.
They may decide to dictate the Strategy that will drive execution.
This is still empowering but somewhat less so.
Another step to the right, and the leader may choose to dictate some of the Tactics for execution.
Empowerment is getting much smaller, but if the team member still has some leeway about how to deploy the tactics or how to shape them to fit the project, then some autonomy still exists.
On the far right of the continuum is Total Direction.
This is where the leader maintains complete control of the project and directs all its working parts, from goals to tactics.
Team members working under this direction are simply taking orders and executing the well-defined plan.
No empowerment exists in this scenario.
The Empowerment Continuum illustrates the many choices leaders have when handing off projects, assignments, and initiatives to team members.
Empowerment is not an all-or-nothing proposition.
Leaders must decide where they are comfortable playing on any given project and with any specific team members.
Good leadership means making choices that more fully empower team members when they are ready.
How much guidance and autonomy a leader wants to offer determines how empowering they are.
Empowering others occurs along a continuum of control.
The best leaders cede the most control they can as often as they can.
A Daily Dispatch from the Front Lines of Leadership.
