employee empowerment

Agenda• Leadership• Employee Empowerment• Rationale behind empowerment• Leader’s role in empowerment• Inhibitors• Implementation• Empowerment traps• Challenges• Lessons on Empowerment from selected

Leaders

KNOWLEDGE

A B

DC

AuthoritativeLeadership

Collaborative Leadership

VisionaryLeadership

Adaptive Leadership

HighLow

Low

High

APPLICATION

Four Quadrants of Leadership

KNOWLEDGE

A B

DC

1

APPLICATION

2

3

4

5

6

1 2 3 4 5

Increasing Staff Leadership

Employee Empowerment

• Theory X style of leadership * Management assumes employees are

inherently lazy and will avoid work if they can * Believed that workers need to be supervised

• Theory Y style of leadership * Assumes employees be ambitious and self-

motivated and exercise self-control * Communicates openly with subordinates * Minimizes the difference between superior-

subordinate relationships * Creates a comfortable environment in which

subordinates can develop and use their abilities

Employee Empowerment

• Controlled transfer of authority to make decisions and take action

• Process of giving front-line employees the authority to make decisions

power-sharing, trust, team-building

• “It's not about having power over other people. It's about empowering people to step up and lead.” William George (Former Chairman and CEO of Medtronic)

Rationale behind Empowerment

• Promotes creative thinking

• Increased employee contribution

• Increased respect among employees secondary to teamwork

• Increased power equals lower absenteeism and better productivity

• Employees have more satisfying work

Rationale behind Empowerment (Contd..)

• An increased depth of competence among employees secondary to cross-training

• Less conflict with administration and managers

• Employees are more likely to agree with changes if they participate in decision making

• Better ideas, better decisions, better quality, better productivity and therefore better competitiveness

Leader’s role in EmpowermentLeadership, Commitment, Facilitation

• Model the Way Clarify your personal values Do what you say attitude

• Inspire a shared vision Desire to make something happen To change

• Challenge the Process Search for Opportunities “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried

to succeed” - Theodore Roosevelt

Leader’s role in Empowerment (Contd..)

• Enable others to Act Foster Collaboration Build Trust

• Encourage the Heart Recognize Contributions Never forget to praise Celebrate the values and victories

• Be a facilitator Exhibit a supportive attitude Take quick action on recommendation

Inhibitors of empowerment• Resistance from employees and unions

Skepticism and inertia to change

• Resistance from management Insecurity Ego Management training

• Lack of workforce readiness Employees is not prepared to take the responsibilities

• Organizational structure and management practices Number of layers of management between workers and

decision-makers Encouragement of employees to speak out against policies

and procedures that inhibit quality and productivity

Implementation of Empowerment

• Four broad steps Create a supportive environment Target and overcome inhibitors Put vehicles in place

• Brainstorming• Nominal Group Technique• Quality circles• Walking and talking (MBWA)

Assess, adjust and improve

Empowered Organisations Can Beat the Competition to Success

• Results of Empowerment Results in increased initiative, involvement, enthusiasm & innovation. Caters to an important human need - the need for recognition and self actualization. Creates “mini managers” who are self directed across all levels of the business.

• Empower and Relieve yourself Changes the managers’ mind-set & leaves them more time for company-wide improvements. Leader has more time and thinking time to engage in overall visionary strategizing Helps organizations a better and stronger growth potential

Challenges

• Increased Risk

• Slow Decision making

• Mid-managers and supervisors consideration of loss of authority

• Slow process needing patience

• Assuming employees have the skill to be empowered

• Failing to define empowerment for middle managers and supervisors

Lessons on Empowerment from Selected Leaders

1. Fred Smith (CEO, FedEx)

• He empowers his employees by periodically survey them about their managers.

• He monitors, measures & reinforces the concept using the famous FedEx survey.

• This empowers employees for self-leadership.

2. Steve Jobs (Founder & Ex-CEO, Apple) • He believed that employees are the real creators of value in any

organization.

• He empowered employees to innovate & solve problems.

• He said: “You have to be run by ideas, not hierarchy. The best idea must win, not the ‘best person’ with the most power or seniority.”

• This value has helped the company to produce one ground-breaking, beautiful product after another.

Lessons on Empowerment from Selected Leaders

3. Vineet Nayar (ex-CEO, HCL)

• His company’s motto, “Employee first, customer second”

• He invites employees to evaluate their bosses and their bosses’ bosses; posts his own review on the firm’s intranet for all to see.

• He believes that organization should be inverted, where the top is accountable to the bottom, and CEO’s office should become irrelevant.

Lessons on Empowerment from Selected Leaders

4. Ulysses S. Grant (War General)

• He felt empowerment begins with knowledge.

• It is important for every employee to understand the organization’s mission & the important role they play in carrying it out.

• This will empower them to think for themselves, not to act like robots & outperform competitors who don’t do it.

Lessons on Empowerment from Selected Leaders

THANK YOU

Presented By:

Jayaprakash Jain (11BM60033)Ashish Khattry (11BM60084)

Ranjeet Kumar Singh (11BM60068)Yash Mehta (11BM60116)