January 05, 2010
If you want to empower your staff, you need to create a culture of support. To that end, you need to do the following:
Listen to your employees’ ideas.
More important, determine how to make them work.
Demonstrate trust in your employees.
If you behave as if you expect them to do their jobs to the best of their abilities, they will go that extra mile to exceed expectations.
Keep employees informed.
Give your employees the real picture, not corporate speak.
Help employees balance work and personal demands.
Recognize your employees have lives beyond the office. Working long hours may occasionally be called for, but should not be a measure of performance or a requirement.
Offer opportunities for lifelong learning.
The more trained, the more able empowered employees are to assume greater authority.
Foster open communication.
Show your employees that you consider yourself and them a part of a team—which means you will share all you hear from senior management when you can do so.
Don’t sugarcoat bad news.
Likely, your employees will know the real scoop. You’ll only lose your workers’ trust if you deviate from the truth or wimp out on the bad news.
Encourage reasonable risk.
Let your employees know they will not be penalized for taking calculated chances that fail. If there is a mistake made, analyze it with the employee so he or she can avoid a similar error in the future.
Foster autonomy.
Make recommendations instead of issuing commands. Better, when an employee comes to you with a question, ask the employee how he or she would handle the problem. Getting an employee to think for himself or herself is critical to empowerment.
Praise successes.
When your employees meet or exceed expectations, recognize that fact in public. Praising build goodwill and also sends the message to all, within and outside your operation, that your employees are doing well.
Link rewards to organizational goals.
Ideally, rewards should reinforce the behavior that leads to attainment of organization goals.