Today we will focus on the concept of “empowerment” or the degree of delegation and autonomy towards our people.
I guess normally you would consider that you are capable to do some jobs and less capable when doing others, but when comes the moment to delegate it is difficult to assess the right assignment of activities and their execution.
Is also clear that, in principle, work passed to people is faster than the same one done by one person.
You have also to consider that not all the persons in the organisation are at same level in terms of seniority, autonomy, preparation.
Often the tendency of managers and organizations is to fiercely defend what is done and who does it. The reasons are really many and all different, from the defense of one’s team to that of one’s personal success to the desire for comfort in not wanting to see flaws in one’s work.
However, often, faced with results that are slow to arrive, one wonders what to do if is convinced that the person is able to achieve the stability objectives, it being clear that one cannot fail to do something or readjust the objectives so that are less challenging.
The solution is very simple: have a look from outside: you need to stop and think that ’empowering’ at all costs requires special attention, as you run the risk of being so encouraging and having such a high equity value that you take a blanket approach to everyone regardless of their level of expertise or skill.
As a manager, it can sometimes feel like you are offering everyone an equal opportunity, but this can quickly lead to disappointment and, hence, to failure.
Why this happens? The reason is extremely simple: as managers one of the tasks we have is to “make a difference”, making sure that people are ready to be held accountable. Just because you see great potential in an employee and believe they are capable of rapid growth does not mean that they are actually ready, willing and able to seize the opportunity. And clearly this cannot be neutral on your planning and delegation approach.
For some employees this is not needed: you just set the bar high and they won’t stop until they succeed or, as sometimes happen, they go beyond the goal.
But there are also other employees who just want to come to work, stay in their comfort zone, and do exactly what’s expected. These are not the people with whom accountability will be effective and, believe it or not, you also need them. For these employees it is appropriate to use the fundamental principle of carefully evaluating their competence and confidence on each new task, using past performance as guidelines.
The resource will need to see this evidence for himself and will be spurred on at every step to define a way forward.
