Management Development through Emloyee Empowerment Skills
You might be surprised how many manager feel concerned when they need to leave their business – you see they have fallen short in being able to empower their employees to cope without them. And that’s a problem…
It must be very wearing for managers to feel that they just cannot absent themselves, when they are missing people in place who can do a great job in their absence.
Empowerment – A Management ‘Must-Have’
Many managers have worked their way up in an organization and feel a close relationship with being in the thick of the work.
When they try to take a step upwards into a full management role, it makes them feel uncomfortable – as if they are not working ‘hard enough’.
It’s a two-fold problem, it leaves all the critical answers in the lap of one person and employees are at a loss, or afraid to make a simple decision in the absence of their superior.
Without Empowerment Employees Will Do Less
Where there are a bunch of employees who are not able to contribute fully because a manager hasn’t been able to ‘let go’ enough, they almost wilfully step back when they could get more involved.
That’s because it postpones a decision to make the customer satisfied at the moment, and may involve more work on the employee’s part, thinking out a solution or a discount maybe.
Why be dealing with an unruly, dissatisfied customer, when they could be doing something less stressful with their time?
Managers Bring This On Themselves
Many managers unknowingly encourage this type of behavior.
They need to know that they will be far better in their own job when they give their people the ability to decide for themselves the actions to take.
Particularly for customer-facing employees, the ability to act fast and delight customers needs to be a given in any business.
Customers Want Employee Empowerment
The customer is waiting for the “manager isn’t here”, and when he gets it, becomes extremely irritated.
They believe that the manager is waiting in the back office, or that the employees have been trained to give this response, and therefore, it becomes an excuse for the employees to blame it on the manager, and the customer to blame it on the manager.
When a manager finds themself in this situation, he faces an irate customer and an employee who expects them to find in their favor, not the customers.
Strong Teams Make Managers Great
The truth is, a manager is only as good as the power they give their employees.
Any employee will grow and develop hugely when given responsibility – empowering them to act and make decisions is a great way forward for them.
Having the knowledge that whatever happens, they will be fully backed up frees them to be creative and happy with their new responsibilities.
This is precisely the way that the very best managers gradually release what they do into the increasingly capable hands of members of their team
Empowerment Is Good For All
For a manager to be brave enough to empower their people is one of the most enlightening actions they can take to remove some of the burdens that others can deliver.
Their people start to feel that they are contributing more fully and, perhaps most importantly, recognize that they can personally make a difference to the success of the organization.
A manager who unleashes the potential of their people in this way will achieve a fulfilment of their own possibilities and that of those in their care too.
Any Manager Will Value Empowerment Skills
It’s an amazing experience as a manager when you turn someone on to the hidden capabilities they have within them already.
For the manager, there is a sense of freedom, closely supplemented by a knowledge that they are developing their people – a wholesome fulfilling result for all.
