Empowering Leadership
Sarah Cook
Sarah Cook is managing director
of The Stairway Consultancy Ltd.
She has 20 years of consulting
experience in leadership development,
coaching, and customer experience.
She has designed and delivered
global development programs
resulting in higher levels of customer
loyalty, employee engagement, and
improved business performance.
She can be contacted at HYPERLINK
mailto:sarah@thestairway.co.uk
sarah@thestairway.co.uk.
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Abstract: Studies show the growing importance of em-
powerment in todays work environment. Empowered
teams are more productive, proactive, and innovative;
they provide better customer service; and show higher
levels of job satisfaction and commitment to their team
and organization. The concept of empowerment is not
new, yet it is something that leaders and managers find
hard to achieve. This article provides practical guidance
and advice on how to create a high-performing work en-
vironment by demonstrating empowered leadership. It
covers the qualities of an effective leader, explains what
is empowered leadership as well as steps to be taken to
improve empowerment.
Keywords: empowering leadership, empowerment, lead-
ership, high-performing team, effective empowerment,
Empowering others, delegation, ownership, accountability,
empowering leader, employee engagement
Introduction
Welcome to Empowered Leadership.
Studies show the growing importance of empower-
ment in todays work environment. Empowered teams
are more productive, proactive, and innovative; provide
better customer service; and show higher levels of job
satisfaction and commitment to their team and organi-
zation. The concept of empowerment is not new, yet
it is something that leaders and managers find hard to
achieve.
This article is intended to provide practical guidance
and advice on how to create a high-performing work en-
vironment by demonstrating empowered leadership.
This article is divided into four sections:
Qualities of an effective leader
What is empowered leadership?
Steps to take to empowerment
Assess your empowerment style
Throughout the article, youll find tips and techniques
that will help you understand the principles and prac-
tice of empowered leadership. At the end of the article
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 Empowering Leadership
youll find a handy assessment tool to help
you identify opportunities to improve your
empowerment.
I hope that you find the advice and
tools in this article practical and helpful in
harnessing the potential of your team via
empowerment.
Qualities of an Effective Leader
The world of work is changing. Social, en-
vironmental, and technological advances
have transformed the workplace. Tradi-
tional hierarchical structures are giving
way to a more flexible, flat system with
horizontal organizational structures more
prevalent than before. Challenger brands
and emerging economies are less bound to
traditional structures. In a global study by
PwC, HR professionals reported that they
expect at least 20 percent of their work-
force to be made up of contractors or tem-
porary workers by 2022.
Activity-based, collaborative working has
transformed the working spaces of large
corporates such as Apple, Google, and BBC.
Intrapreneurial-ship within companies is
on the rise.
The erosion of the conventional concept
of the workplace and traditional work hours
together with the rise of remote working
mean that more employees can work from
anywhere and at any time. The boundaries
between work and home life are blurring.
Studies predict that by 2019 there will be 24
billion devices connected to the internet of
things.
Todays workplace sees more genera-
tional diversity as Baby Boomers, Gen-
eration X and Y (Millenniums) all work
together. The gender balance is also now
becoming more equal, with a greater num-
ber of women in the workforce. Increasing
life expectancy together with pension re-
forms means people will need to be at work
longer.
However, there are 80 million Baby
Boomers who are going to retire over the
next five to seven years. They will be re-
placed by 40 million Generation Xers. The
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millennial generation who will form most
of the workforce by 2020 expect to work for
many employers during their career. They
seek job satisfaction, fulfillment, and fast
career progression. Their focus is on inter-
est and opportunity rather than on mere
monetary rewards.
So, what does this mean for leadership?
How does todays leader need to adapt to
keep up with change?
Openness from managers and input from
employees are now far more important in
the workplace. Empowering employees is
a key skill in attracting and retaining tal-
ent, with autonomy and flexibility being a
major determinant in job choice.
For example, a 2013 Workplace Survey
published by Gensler in the United States
shows how the power of choice and auton-
omy drive not only employee happiness,
but also motivation and performance. It
found that knowledge workers whose com-
panies allow them to help decide when,
where, and how they work were more
likely to be satisfied with their jobs, per-
formed better, and viewed their company
as more innovative than competitors that
didnt offer such choices; 60 percent re-
ported saying that they would leave their
jobs if their employer restricted their abil-
ity to do personal tasks at work.
In an article in Harvard Business Review
by Sunnie Giles, entitled The most impor-
tant leadership competencies according
to leaders around the world (HBR March
15, 2016), empowerment was seen as the
second most important leadership compe-
tency after the competency of demonstrat-
ing strong ethics and providing a sense of
security.
Giles defines empowerment as Pro-
viding clear direction while allowing em-
ployees to organize their own time and
work. As complexity in the workplace in-
creases, no one leader can do everything
themselves.
When we refer to leaders we mean any-
one who has responsibility and account-
ability for others, regardless of formal
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 Empowering Leadership
leadership structures and titles. You may be
an executive, manager, supervisor, project
manager, matrix manager, or team leader
but irrespective of title, you still have the
influence to create an empowering envi-
ronment for others.
What is Empowered Leadership?
Digital, social, and economic transforma-
tions will continue to drive need for organiza-
tions to operate with less authoritarian-style
management and actively involve employ-
ees in business processes. Yet there are
many misconceptions about empowered
leadership. Essentially it is the ability to let
people self-organize, demonstrate choice
and flexibility, and for leaders and manag-
ers to rely on decision-making from those
who are closest to the action. When peo-
ple feel entrusted to make decisions it gives
them a stronger sense of ownership and
self-worth. This, in turn, makes them more
productive in their roles as well as benefit-
ing customers who can obtain quicker reso-
lutions to problems.
Empowerment goes further than del-
egation in that delegation is leaders giving
subordinates tasks to complete and time-
lines in which to complete them. Empow-
erment is more about trusting employees
to make decisions and to self-organize.
Delegation is typically more task-based
while empowerment is more authority-
and decision-based.
Empowerment involves trusting others
and giving them authority. Many leaders
find it difficult to empower others because
they believe that they should hold on to
power. It can be challenging to them not
to always be the decision-maker. They may
think it is quicker to do something them-
selves, they are reluctant to allow others
to make mistakes, and they fear facing
negative consequences from subordinates
decisions.
To successfully empower others the
leader needs to have an underlying be-
lief that people are internally motivated,
want to give their best at work, and thrive
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on positive challenges. Helpful beliefs are
that employees want to take full respon-
sibility for their work and do not require
close or constant supervision. The leader
does not have to be the most clever or
able member of the group, rather their
role is to coach and facilitate an envi-
ronment that encourages ownership and
accountability.
Steps to Take Toward Empowerment
How empowered are your team members?
Here are some practical actions that you
can take to create a more empowering en-
vironment with your team.
Trust Your Team
Empowerment means that the leader needs
to trust team members to give their best.
Trust develops when you know someone
welltheir strengths, ambitions, motiva-
tions as well as weaknesses and fears. It is
also engendered when team members un-
derstand their leader and their strengths
and blind spots, in other words, when team
members are open with you as a leader and
you show your vulnerabilities too.
How well do you know your team? Often
leaders operate on a transactional basis and
the topic of discussion with team members
is around operational goals and tasks. We
suggest you spend time with your team to
find out more about them and what makes
them tick.
You may find the following questions
and activities helpful to build a trusting re-
lationship. They are based on finding out
more about the rational and emotional side
of team members. You can select questions
to use at team events or one-to-ones to bet-
ter understand your team. Make sure you
are open about your own responses too:
Share something about your family back-
grounde.g., siblings/hometown/where
you grow up
What were you interested in as a child?
What was your best job/role ever?
What was your worst job/role?
What currently is your biggest challenge?
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