Guide to Empowering Your Team.
To have a highly engaged and productive team, you need empowered people.
What is empowerment?
When someone is empowered, they believe they can take positive action.
They have an ‘internal locus of control’, which means they focus on what they can control.
Studies have proven people with an internal locus of control are more resilient.
At work, that means colleagues who are confident and capable of getting the job done.
Why is it important at work?
When someone is empowered, they are more likely to:
Make smart decisions in their boss’ absence.
Advocate for projects.
Handle and lead big conversations.
Be more resilient to change.
Not take things personally.
Be less overwhelmed/paralysed.
Produce higher quality results.
The benefits are countless.
What does an empowered person look like?
At work, empowered people take positive action, more often.
They seek feedback, and crave to make productive progress. They believe that progress will happen as a result of their actions.
How does a disempowered person behave?
Disempowered people doubt their abilities or influence.
As a result, they become reliant on being told what to do or stop taking action altogether. They lack the faith that progress will happen as a result of their actions.
How do you empower someone at work?
By giving them the tools and support to succeed. You need to help them succeed by allowing them to use their own skills, intelligence and expertise.
But what if my team member doesn’t have experience or context?
You can either teach your team member to do something successfully, coach them into taking positive action, or mentor them.
For example:
Teach = show someone how to do it. E.g. a how to, or training.
Coach = help someone else figure out how they’d do it. E.g ask them questions.
Mentor = share how you did it. E.g. your lived experience.
Depending on what level they’re at will dictate what tool you use.
For example:
If the team member is new to the workplace, the job or context, teach them.
If the team member is competent at the job but new to the context, coach them.
If the team member is a pro at the job, and newish to the context, mentor them.
Five ways to accidentally disempower your colleagues.
If you find yourself doing one or more of the below, you may be unintentionally disempowering your colleagues.
Providing unspecific feedback. Unspecific feedback doesn’t help someone appreciate what they can do differently to improve. Instead, try smaller pieces of specific feedback so it’s crystal clear. Permission to be explicit, your colleague will appreciate the specific example.
‘Fixing’ their work without telling them. People often rush in to ‘save the day’ to help a project. The impact is that this communicates you don’t trust the person to achieve the task. If you don’t trust someone, you don’t have evidence yet they can do it themselves. Instead, consider one of the four steps, outlined at the bottom of this guide (see: ‘four alternatives to taking over’).
Complaining about others. While it might feel cathartic in the moment, gossiping about others erodes trust. The person on the receiving end of the gossip may wonder if you speak negatively about them. Instead, start working on your comfort levels advocating for yourself and talk to the person directly.
Going online when ‘offline’. While no doubt you mean well, the impact is that it erodes trust from your colleagues by saying one thing (e.g. ‘I’m going offline’) and doing another (e.g. going online). Instead, practise doing what you say you are going to do. This builds trust.
Jumping into a document, not saying why. Instead, practise giving specific, timely feedback so other people can action your observations, if they agree.
Do you find yourself taking over to ‘save the day’?
People often jump in to save the day to minimise risks. This is because they don’t have evidence that the person can do the job successfully yet.
To start empowering your team, consider one of the four elements below.
Four alternatives to taking over.
Your goal is to find alternatives to de-risk your work that don’t involve 100% of your capacity.
1.Notice your ‘default’ style when stressed.
Do you default to taking over when things get busy? When this happens, what risk do you think you are seeking to minimise?
For example:
Are you afraid that a complex part of the project won’t get finished?
Are you afraid if you take total ownership, you’ll be on the receiving end of blame if it goes wrong?
Then, flip it.
What skill would you need more confidence in, to be able to minimise that fear?
If one fear is telling a team member their quality has dropped, the skill to work on is feedback. If a concern is that someone will drop the ball, you’ll benefit from upgrading your delegation skills.
2. Be explicit about interlaps and risks when delegating.
Research has indicated nearly half of employees have no idea what is expected at work. Leaders are nowhere nearly as explicit as we believe ourselves to be.
Be explicit about your understanding about whose job is whose. Example: “Your job is X. That starts here and ends here. My job is Y. That starts here and ends here.”
Research has shown when you discuss risks, performance increases. Get your team in the habit of proactively discussing risks, pros and cons. This teaches your team the skill of workshopping things that could go wrong, and creating a plan accordingly.
3. Use the four steps of delegation.
If you avoid delegating or take back tasks when they don’t meet your standards, you may need to adjust how much oversight you have on what you delegate.
The tool to do that is the four steps to delegation. Check out the four steps in this guide to breaking down delegation, according to your team's skill level.
4. Have an honest conversation.
If you want to have a different type of relationship, make that explicit.
Figure out what your ideal outcome would be, then, tell them what stops you from having/doing that. Example: “I want to give you more responsibility. What stops me, is when I give you X task, it comes back incomplete. I’m noticing I now hesitate. What’s your experience?”
Outline what type of relationship you’d like, and offer what you'd need to see for that to become a reality. Get more ideas on feedback conversations in this feedback guide.
Did you know we run workshops on how to empower teams at work?
Trusted by educators, government organisations, private companies and more. Get in touch to learn more.