EMPOWERMENT MANAGEMENT

• Engagement is all about generating a high level of passion from people.

An engaged employee is willing to invest discretionary effort beyond
expectations. She/he is not just committed but instead is passionate and
connected to the purpose and values of the organization.

• Enablement is about providing employees with what they need to do

their jobs well as well as creating an environment in which they feel
comfortable to perform at their best. It includes tools, financial
resources, direction, processes/procedures/policies and a collaborative
working environment that allows employees to perform optimally.

• Empowerment is about giving employees the problem-solving and

decision-making authority as well as allowing them to take responsibility
for utilizing the organization’s resources to achieve results. It translates
into employees feeling that they are given the opportunity to express
their concerns and to make suggestions for improvements.
 Intro
• Research has regularly demonstrated that when employees feel
empowered at work, it is associated with stronger job performance,
job satisfaction, and commitment to the organization.
• But our recent research found that this style of leadership works best
in motivating certain types of performance and certain types of
employees. “Empowering” leaders should know when they can be
most effective.

• We conducted a meta-analysis of all available field experiments on

leaders empowering subordinates – examining the results of 105
studies, which included data from more than 30,000 employees from
30 countries. Our paper was published in the Journal of Organizational
Behavior. We looked at whether an empowering leadership style was
linked to improved job performance, and we tested whether this was
true of different types of performance, such as routine task
performance, organizational citizenship behavior, and creativity.
 Empowering leaders had more creative and
helpful employees.
Leaders who were perceived as more empowering were more likely to delegate
authority to their employees, ask for their input, and encourage autonomous
decision-making. And they were more likely to have employees who were rated,
by either their leader or colleagues, as being highly creative and good
organizational citizens.
• First, employees who thought their leaders were more empowering were
indeed more likely to feel empowered at work – they felt a greater sense of
autonomy or control in their work, they felt that their job had meaning and it
aligned with their values, that they were competent in their abilities, and that
they could make a difference. These feelings of empowerment helped to
explain the effects of such leaders on both employee creativity and citizenship
behavior.
• Second, employees were more likely to trust leaders who they perceived as
more empowering. this feeling of trust helped to explain the effects of
empowering leadership on both creativity and citizenship. This is because trust
reduces uncertainty in the environment by instilling a sense of safety, which
enables employees to take on more risks without feeling vulnerable.
But feeling empowered doesn’t always boost
routine task performance.
• We found that empowering leaders were linked to good employee
performance on routine, core job tasks – but they weren’t much different
from non-empowering leaders.
• For instance, one study in our analysis found that by trying to provide
employees with additional responsibility and challenges at work,
empowering leaders burdened their employees and increased their
level of job stress. The empowering leaders who did see better
performance on routine tasks were the ones who developed good
relationship with their employees and were more trusted.
• Our results again showed that the effects of leading by empowering
others are determined by how employees perceive their leader’s
behavior. Followers may view greater autonomy or shared decision-
making as an indication that the leader trusts them and is providing them
with opportunities for self‐development and growth – or they may see
those as evidence that the leader can’t lead and is trying to avoid making
difficult decisions.
 EAST vs WEST
• There is some debate as to whether empowering employees is a “Western”
management principle, one that may not translate to “Eastern” cultures such as in
China. To our surprise, we found that leaders who were perceived as empowering
by employees in companies located in Eastern cultures (such as China) had a
bigger effect on routine performance than leaders in Western cultures (like the
U.S.). In other words, empowering leadership behaviors (e.g., delegating authority
and providing additional responsibility) were associated with better routine job
performance among employees in Eastern compared to Western cultures.
• This result may be explained by the fact that, in Eastern societies, like China, India,
and the Republic of Korea, those in more powerful positions are expected to
assist and support those in lower positions, while subordinates are expected to
be loyal and obey their leader. This social norm should enhance the acceptance of
leadership empowerment among employees and even amplify its effects.
• But in Western societies, like the U.S., UK, and Germany, employees may prefer
and expect greater independence from their leader. In this context, the extensive
care and concern shown by an empowering leader could be seen as an intrusion
or even an attempt at informal control. This may explain why we found weaker
effects in Western cultures, where empowering leadership is seemingly not always
welcomed.
 Industry
• We also looked at whether empowering leadership would be
more effective in labor-intensive businesses (such as
hospitality, construction, education, medical care), where
people are key to organizational effectiveness, compared to
asset-intensive businesses (for example, energy,
telecommunications, and transportation), which require
substantial investment in physical or financial assets. To our
surprise, we did not find that to be the case. We assumed
that empowering leadership might be more constrained in
asset-intensive businesses due to automation and highly
structured work processes, but our finding suggests that
empowering leadership is beneficial across different
industries.
 Tenure
• We found that empowering leadership had a stronger positive
influence on the day-to-day performance of employees who had
less experience in the organization compared to employees who
had been in their jobs for longer.
• In other words, empowering leaders saw greater improvements
in job performance among less experienced employees than
among more experienced employees. This also surprised us as we
thought employees with less experience and job knowledge
would be less able to seize opportunities given to them by
managers. However, it is also likely that newer members of staff
are especially keen to take opportunities and make a good first
impression. Thus, affording newer staff the opportunity to take
ownership of their role may be a particularly effective leadership
tool.