A520.5.3.RB - Forrester's Empowerment

A520.5.3.RB - Forrester's Empowerment

Delegation or empowerment represents the essence of the supervisory task: getting things done through people. The terms are no different from each other; empowerment is simply delegation done properly. The process still fails for the same old reasons, and failure still causes the same kinds of problems. Delegation or empowerment involves authority; it is authority that is delegated, not responsibility, as commonly claimed. Under either name it is an imperfect process requiring subjective judgments and chronic risk. Although either label is acceptable--the few differences between delegation and empowerment are semantic only--the significant constant that must be present is a sense of task ownership on the part of the empowered employee.

Russ Forrester notes in his article “Empowerment: Rejuvenating a potent idea”, that the concept of true delegation and empowerment is difficult for many companies and its leaders. What is most fascinating about Forrester's article was in how he entitled it, "Rejuvenating a potent idea". Forrester states, the short falls in empowerment are more about flawed implementation than flawed conception.

Forrester discusses six short circuits to empowerment, those are: precipitous empowerment mandates, an over reliance on a narrow psychological concept, one-size-fits-all, negligence of the needs of power sharers, piecemeal approaches, and distortions of accountability. The first of these concepts, precipitous empowerment, empowers the workers at the front but is implemented faster with very little caution. In the end this method actually takes power away from everyone, the opposite of empowerment. The next of concepts relies on employees’ intrinsic motivation. In the end the employees really do not have the power leadership tells them they have which results in resentment and lost trust. Both present themselves as obstacles to achieving empowerment. The one-size-fits-all is a poor example of empowerment because not all employees, managers, and organizations are the same. What manager delegates to one employee might not be able to be delegated to another. Skill and experience are important things to consider when deciding when to delegate. The next concept of negligence harms the middle-man, “the most common mistake made by organizations looking to empower frontline employees is to take too lightly what they are asking the managers in the middle to do.” (Forrester, 2010). It does not make much sense to have high empowered low-level employees with low empowered high-level employees. Piecemeal approaches to empowerment work at low-functioning areas. In other words they address the immediate symptoms but fail to eradicate the disease. Finally there are distortions of accountability. If there is no accountability for the employees that are now empowered, the entire organization could crumble.

Whetten & Cameron list several ways that one can do better to empower; namely by using five identified core ways particularly; Self-efficacy is a sense of personal competence, Self-determination is a sense of personal choice, Personal consequence is a sense of having impact, Meaning is a sense of value in activity, Trust is a sense of security. These five elements are defined as clear direction on how to offer empowerment.  When these five elements are present company employees will do better jobs and the company overall does a great deal better too. The Forrester article for the most part speaks to short indirect ways to the empowerment of the organization while the text shows five.  Over all they both speak of empowerment and its usefulness, both for the individual and the company.

Both authors suggest that managers must develop a well-established framework that clearly outlines expectations, goals and vision, trains employees, encourages employees and provides the necessary support that contributes to organizational success.

References

Forrester, R. (2000). Empowerment: Rejuvenating a potent idea” (Links to an external site. The Academy of Management Executive, 67-80.

Whetten, D. A. (2001). Developing Management Skills. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall/Pearson.