Empowerment

Empowered! 

Describe a time when you have been empowered to accomplish something.  Reflect on how others supported you and how the endeavor was accomplished.  How can you apply those lessons to your own followers?

The best example I can provide is when I was tasked to acquire new flight planning software for our airline.  Our operation was struggling financially, but there was reason for optimism due to a new aircraft we were acquiring which stretched our operations into Europe.  This required an upgrade to a new software program that had the capability for international flight planning. 

The Chief Pilot and Director of Safety had confidence in me to conduct the research and propose the most capable software for purchase.  The task itself was fairly straight forward, as the requirements were fairly obvious.  What I appreciated from both gentlemen was their counsel on presenting this information to the company owner.  Their idea of empowerment was to let me go dig as deep as I could on the technical aspects, but would eventually reel me back in so the intended audience would hear the message. 

I think an important aspect of “empowerment” as we have studied this week is considering the basics of what exactly is the improvement that is being sought.  Is this about better communication or more complete information?  Is the empowerment meant to free employees of cumbersome processes, or is the purpose to make customer response agile and timely? 

While the term evokes a certain idea of freedom or liberty from constriction, managers must understand what improvements are sought and how best to utilize employee energy and resourcefulness to make those improvements.  Empowerment may be seen as a freedom of purpose for employees to achieve understanding or provide real time support, but as importantly is the results that managers hope to achieve from them.

For a manager of a workforce, I would emphasize that I need their knowledge to assist in finding the details that can lead us to success in a production or process scenario or their experience in taking care of customers in a service situation.  Either way, providing activity that suits their strengths and allowing their desire to drive their effort to a potentially higher level is what empowerment is about.