Leadership Nudge – Give Control and Create LeadersYou can’t “direct” empowerment programs. Directed empowerment programs are flawed because they are predicated on this assumption: I have the authority and ability to empower you (and you don’t). Fundamentally, that’s disempowering. This internal contradiction dooms these initiatives.
Rather you should search for the organizational practices and procedures that would need to be changed in order to have the greatest leverage in giving people control and creating engaged workplaces. The goal is to implement enduring mechanisms that will embed the goodness of the organization in your people and practices and won’t rely on any one person to make it happen.
My leadership nudge to you this week is this:
The next time you are supposed to lead a meeting, don’t go. Delegate it to your team. Have them tell you what happened after the meeting.
Let us know how it goes.
