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How Leadership Has Changed and What You Should Do to Get Better Results
Empower Others To Be and Give Their Best
By Dr. Paul L. Gerhardt, PhD
I have been working with leaders from many different industries and at all levels over the past nearly 20 years as a consultant and trainer. It always amazes me how that even the smartest leaders fail to recognize that much of what is going wrong with employees was caused by a lack of leadership training. Many leaders fail to know what they need to know. This article will help you get better results from followers.
The concept of ideal leadership has steadily changed and evolved throughout the years. Whereas once upon a time the leader’s role involved him giving orders or commands to employees and the employees job was to obey till he/she got a promotion. Needless to say, times have now changed. Nowadays, leaders and bosses look towards empowering their followers to come up with solutions by themselves. Why empower them? Well, empowering someone has a significant number of benefits, some of which are outlined below:
Empowering motivates your employees:
Empowerment, to put it simply is basically motivating your workforce by saying that you believe in them and they have the abilities to get the job done. If you call in an employee and tell him/her the results you hope to achieve and give them the responsibility and freedom to achieve it, chances are that person will immediately feel a rush of motivation to accomplish the given task.
Empowering people to give their best boosts performance:
This is of course obvious. Empowering someone is a great way to increase their productivity and work ethic. You’ll find that soon your employees are giving you more results, and faster results. This is because one they have gotten the motivation to pursue something, the individual will immediately begin to work harder and think creatively to achieve his target at any cost. Performance is greatly boosted in a person who as they say ‘takes part in the action’.
Empowering boosts loyalty:
When you empower people, you consciously hand over a bit of responsibility and power to them. This shows that you trust your employees, you believe in them to be able to perform. When things are rough for the company, these people you empowered will be the ones who stay with you and weather the storm. The belief and trust creates extremely loyal employees, who will stay in your company for longer and give their best to take the company to new heights.
Empowering will let you get to know your employees better:
By talking to your employees directly and personally tracking their progress, the bond between you and your employees will grow stronger. This is very important on many fronts. Firstly, you begin to get a good understanding of the type of people your company works with. More importantly, this also allows you to personally select and groom a specific batch of employees for the future. There will come a time when new leaders must arise to replace you and your colleagues. By empowering new minds, you can groom the next generation of leaders in the exact way you would like them to lead. This is good planning for the future and you will be able to retire in peace, content after leaving the company in safe hands.
To conclude, the benefits of empowering others to give their best are limitless. The time for giving and listening to orders is over. In our current age, we need people who will question, be inquisitive and steadily grow into the leaders of the future. Likewise, we need leaders who are smart enough to help each employee know what the organization expects, find out what resources each person needs, remove obstacles in advance so that each employee can do what needs to be done, then the leader must praise good work, which helps each person know how what they do makes a positive difference. Of course, empowering also means getting the heck out of the way so that employees can do what it takes to do a good job; while best utilizing his/her unique talents and insights to make the organization better.
Dr. Paul Gerhardt is a tenured professor of management, diversity and well-respected and trusted leadership lecturer/trainer who helps organizations get amazing returns on investment. Dr. Gerhardt is the author of several publications available on Amazon.com, including Diversity at Work and the new Leadership Handbook. Consider inviting Dr. Paul Gerhardt to do customized leadership or diversity training at your organization. Most organizations find that diversity and leadership training by the right trainer has a significant instant return on investment. You can get your FREE COPY of the Leadership Handbook by clicking this link: http://bit.ly/LeadershipHandbook
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