Empowerment is a word that as become more widely-used with every passing month recently, and as with many so-called buzzwords, it can sometimes seem that it is thrown around without much thought being given to what it really means. For some employers, it often seems like “empowering” employees can mean anything from giving them a special name badge to allowing them free coffee in the office canteen. For a word to truly mean something, it needs to represent some kind of change.
So if you want to be an empowering boss, how do you make empowerment mean something? You need to be offering your employees a way to feel like their decisions are taken seriously. And below, we’ll take a look at what that resembles in a workplace setting. Following these tips will help you become an empowering employee - and we’ll talk a little about how that pays off for you.
Be open to new ideas
A lot of bosses like to say “my door is always open”, but in reality if you want your employees to feel that matters, your mind needs to be open too. You should communicate to your workers that although you may have the manager’s office, this isn’t a dictatorship. Listening to your employees’ ideas and acting on them can be hugely beneficial, because it drives enthusiasm (and because the ideas are often simply good for business!). If people are coming to work feeling like their thoughts and actions make a difference, their work will be infused with more positivity and innovative thinking.
Promote from within
This doesn’t need to be something you do exclusively - if there is someone ideal for a position and they don’t currently work for you then there is always a case to be made for external recruitment - but it does boost morale to show employees that career advancement is on the table. Offering management leadership training and giving promising employees more autonomy in their work is a sure way to identify people who have the necessary qualities to move on up through the ranks. In addition, the possibility of burnout among employees is linked to feeling stuck in a rut - the prospect of something better is a great incentive.
Offer positive recognition
It’s one thing to tell an employee “Well done” when they’ve handled a situation impressively, saved the company money or hooked a new, lucrative client. It’s another to hold them up and recognise their value more widely. You would be astonished how many people have a low opinion of themselves despite being great at what they do. Sometimes, the only way to get them to see how important they are is to make sure everyone else sees it. A culture of positivity, and of celebrating the positive contributions everyone makes, means more employees are likely to go above and beyond - and you’ll see the benefits right across the business if you’re open with praise.
Empowering your employees can mean giving up a little bit of power yourself, but the more positivity there is within a business, the more it amplifies everything that’s good about the atmosphere. In the long run, that’s better for everyone.
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