Last
week, we discussed motivation of employees within an organization. One
motivator that was discussed was empowerment. However, empowerment, though
motivational, is different from influencing others. “Empowerment means providing
freedom for people to successfully do what they want to do, rather than getting
them to do what you want them to do” (Whetten & Cameron, 2016, p. 366). Through
empowerment, managers are able to delegate tasks and subordinates are free to
operate in the way that they feel is best to complete the given tasks.
There
are five core dimensions of empowerment (Whetten and Cameron, 2016). They are
self-efficacy, self-determination, personal consequence, meaning, and trust. Though
it may have been worded slightly different, these same dimensions were revealed
in almost every article that I researched this week over the concept of
successful empowerment. For example, Matsudaira (2016) focuses on the concept
of empowerment through self-efficacy (a sense of competence) through extensive
task training. Others focused on other dimensions such as Webb’s discussion on
both empowerment through personal consequences (“ownership” of the task) and meaning
(2002).
For
this particular blog, we were given an article to review and asked to compare
and contrast it to the concepts discussed in our weekly reading. The author is
Russ Forrester who is an organizational psychologist who studies teams and
nontraditional organizational patters. The article is titled “Empowerment:
Rejuvenating a potent idea” (see reference below). Though the concepts that he
discusses are similar to what is found in our weekly reading, he actually takes
a unique approach and begins by first outlining what doesn’t work with empowerment.
Russ
Forrester begins with a unique idea of why empowerment often fails. When
subordinate employees are delegated power, they are usually not compensated for
the new responsibilities. Their pay doesn’t increase nor does their position
within the organization. They often don’t receive any added benefit for the
increased responsibility. He states:
Suddenly, their work lives have been
enriched by time-consuming duties of administration,
decision making, and coordination. They are not given any more time to carry out what had been considered more demanding
functions that made up someone else’s
better-paid, full time job (Forrester, 2002, p. 68).
This
type of “empowerment” often leaves employees feeling overwhelmed and under-valued.
The
next “short circuit” to empowerment that Forrester discusses has to do with the
psychological aspect of empowerment. The psychological concept assumes that
empowered employees will be motivated and have feelings of self-efficacy. “Proponents
of the psychological approach expect that empowered employees will find the
work intrinsically rewarding and will attack with a verve that would not
otherwise be attained” (2002, p. 69). However, as you can imagine, we are not
all motivated by the same things. Some people crave competition whereas others
are passive. Some act on logic whereas others act on emotion. Not every
employee will react the same to the power that they are given. That is a
perfect segue to his next point, as well. There is no “one-size fits all” for
empowering employees. Many organizations fear that they will create dissention
amongst employees by empowering some and not others. It is almost as if they
fear hurting the feelings of those not empowered. They don’t want to create an “us
vs. them” environment. Though it is good to try to maintain the peace within
the organization, “empowerment programs more often fail because they fail to differentiate
among employees” (Forrester, 2002, p. 70). Some employees are just better
equipped to handle power than others. Being indiscriminate with empowerment is
counterproductive. When power is given, the recipient’s motivation and ability
must be taken into account.
Forrester
continues his discussion of why empowerment fails with what he considers to be
the most common mistake made by organizations looking to empower employees –
not considering what they are asking the middle managers to do. As a mid-level
manager myself, I can surely relate to this. “Many top executives seem to
believe that managers and supervisors who have been exercising the most power
will, at the declaration of an empowerment program, readily pass that power on”
(Forrester, 2002, p. 70). As a mid-level manager, when this happens, I often
wonder what my role is then. If those above me are empowering those subordinate
to me, where do I fit into the picture? I was my subordinates to be empowered
but, as their manager, should I not be the one to delegate as I see fit? When
those above us empower those below us, they are actually doing the opposite of
empowerment to us. They just took the power away from us.
The
next mistake often made with empowerment is a piecemeal approach. Forrester
presents several examples of failed empowerment programs where positive
empowerment actions were implemented but the larger system wasn’t adjusted to
account for the new empowerment program. I was just watching an episode of “The
Office” (the NBC mockumentary) and saw a perfect example of this. In the
episode, the staff are all told that their role is to support the salesmen and
the salesmen are empowered to run their operations as they see fit. When this
happens, everything begins to fall apart in a hilarious way. Though just a
fictional situation, it is actually a very real scenario that could happen in
any organization. The sales staff was empowered but the larger system wasn’t addressed.
Nothing else changed in the office to adjust to their autonomy. (Though the
show is hilarious, it is interesting to watch it through the lens of a leadership
and management grad student. It’s amazing how much you can actually learn from
it!)
The
final shortcoming of empowerment discussed by Forrester is the distortion of
accountability. This, to me, was the most interesting point and I have never
considered it before now. Those at the very top of the organization have the
most accountability. The more power you have, the more accountability comes
with the role. If the decisions and actions made by top executives fail, the
entire organization can cease to exist. In the case of business, this can cost
thousands of jobs and millions of dollars to shareholders. However, what happens
at the very bottom to the person with the least power if they fail? Consider
someone that works in sales. What happens if they fail? The consequences of
their failure are far less. Where this becomes an issue is when empowerment
occurs but accountability doesn’t increase. I started considering how this
relates to my work as a center leader for an Army recruiting center. If I fail
at my job, my center may fail to complete our mission requirements. However, if
I empower our most junior recruiter and he fails, his accountability hasn’t necessarily
been increased. He is in a much more forgiving place. With empowerment, we, as
managers and leaders, need to consider the power-accountability balance.
I
greatly appreciate the insight and perspective of Dr. Forrester since he
outlined not just how to empower those under us but also how to recognize how
empowerment fails.
Forrester,
R. (2002). Empowerment: Rejuvenating a potent idea. Measuring Business Excellence, 6(2),
68. doi:10.1108/mbe.2002.26706baf.006
Matsudaira,
K. (2016). Delegation as art. New York: ACM. doi:10.1145/2890772
Webb,
R. (2002). Delegation: Burden or empowerment? Education 3-13, 30(3),
35-41. doi:10.1080/03004270285200331
Whetten,
D. A., & Cameron, K. S. (2016). Developing
management skills (9th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
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