Fear of Empowerment is the Fear of the Empowered
Most CEOs want to empower their employees. They recognize the value, as well as the cost, of un-empowered employees. (See our October 2010 Food For Thought: The Cost of Un-Empowered Employees). What they often do not appreciate, and usually fear, is the cost of empowerment.
First, let's examine how we might define empowerment.
Most people would define empowerment as encouraging and enabling others to make decisions and take actions. Do the actions of the empowered have to be the same as the inclinations of the manager? In speaking to over 1,000 CEOs each year, I often ask this question of a group of CEOs. Their common response is, "No, [the subordinates] must be allowed to make mistakes and learn from them."
I am sure you have heard that response yourself. Have you ever paused to think about the arrogance behind that statement? What is the arrogance? The CEO assumes that if the subordinate's course of action is not the same as the inclination of the CEO, then the subordinate's approach must be wrong, and that the subordinate should be allowed to pursue that erroneous path to discover and learn why it is the wrong approach. There lies the de-link between the CEO's claim of wanting to empower their people and their willingness to do so.
For true empowerment, one must fully accept and adopt the view that difficult decisions will have multiple options whose validity cannot be ascertained until the future unfolds.
Neither the CEO nor the subordinate can prove today that their approach is better. Hence, the CEO desirous of empowering their employees must adopt the view that the subordinate's approach could well be better than their own. Otherwise, the employees will see through the desire of the CEO to want everything done their way and will not feel empowered.
Based on this, we offer a good test of an empowered organization:
Can your employees readily cite many examples from the recent past, where an employee chose to pursue a certain path, fully knowing that it was counter to the intuition of their manager? Ask yourself this question. In fact, ask your employees to name such instances! This is a tough test to pass.
So, why do we fear empowerment?
Because, we fear what the empowered might do! Even though you can intellectually understand that, on occasions, the empowered employee's approach might actually be better than your own, at the moment you are not convinced that in this situation it is. So, you encourage them to follow your approach - destroying your intent to empower them. To truly empower your people you must have the courage to stand in the moment and support and enable the success of your employee's decision - even if it is counter to your intuition. Not because they need to learn from their mistake, but because they might do it a better way than you knew how. The fear of empowerment is the fear of the empowered.
We chose the title, in part, because it parses in two different ways. So far, we have discussed one meaning of the title.
An alternative parsing of the phrase suggests that the fear of empowerment is the fear that it instills in the empowered!
A truly empowering CEO allows his or her employees to make decisions and take actions. Employees begin to understand and appreciate the responsibility that it places on them. Now, they are not simply executing the decision of their superior, but rather executing their own decisions, based on their analysis and opinions. Success and failure will now directly reflect on them. That is scary!
The fear of empowerment is the fear of the empowered. Both, the fear of the superior in empowering his or her employees and accepting what they might decide to do, and the fear of the employees who are now empowered and the spotlight is on them. That said, an empowered organization can do things that no CEO could ever do. Fear not, and empower them.
Food for Thought is our way of sharing interesting concepts on corporate leadership and management with others who might find it useful. The thoughts offered are intended to be controversial and thought provoking. They are intended to help our readers intentionally realize their potential, what we call Potentionality.