Chapter 8 - Empowering and Engaging Others

Empowerment

• Providing freedom for people to successfully do what they want to do, rather than getting them to do what you want them to do.

• Pull vs. Push:

  • It’s a “Pull” strategy: it energizes intrinsic encouragement.

  • Traditional management is a “Push” strategy: induces employees through external incentives.

• Power vs. Empowerment: you can give a person power (positional authority), but they must accept empowerment (internal belief and feeling).

Empowering Others

• Enabling others to take initiative, make decisions, and contribute their full potential.

• Benefits:

  • Increased motivation and engagement.

  • Improved problem-solving and innovation.

  • Greater sense of ownership and responsibility.

  • Stronger team and collaboration.

The Five Dimensions of Empowerment

• Self-Efficacy: the feeling that one has the capability to perform a specific task successfully.

• Self-Determination: a feeling that one has a choice to voluntarily and internationally pursue a task (autonomy).

• Personal Consequences (Impact): the conviction that through one’s own actions, one can influence outcomes.

• Meaning: A perception of intrinsic value in the activity (the work matters).

• Trust: confidence that one will be treated fairly and that those in authority will not harm them.

Fostering Empowerment: The Manager’s Actions (Overview)

• Research suggests nine specific prescriptions for managers to foster these five internal dimensions.

• We will group these nine into three categories:

  • Ability

  • Environment

  • Confidence

Building Internal Ability (Self-efficacy)

1. Setting SMART Goals: Specific, Measurable, Aligned, Realistic, Time-bound.

2. Fostering Personal Mastery Experiences: Foster small wins by breaking large tasks into smaller, achievable ones.

3. Modeling: provide examples of past successful behavior.

4. Providing Support: praise performance regularly and provide encouragement.

5. Providing Necessary Resources: ensure employees have needed training, development, time, and equipment.

Creating the Right Environment (Choice & Meaning)

6. Articulating a Clear Goal: Set SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Aligned, Realistic, Time-bound).

7. Creating Emotional Arousal: replace negative emotions with positive ones (excitement, passion, anticipation).

8. Connecting to Outcomes: ensure task identity by giving employees opportunities to accomplish the whole task so they can see results (impact).

Building Trust and Security (Confidence)

9. Managers must consistently demonstrate these five factors:

   1. Reliability: be consistent, dependable, and stable.

   2. Fairness: clarify standards and expectations; apply them unbiasedly.

   3. Caring: show personal concern and validate others’ point of view.

   4. Openness: be straightforward and honest.

   5. Competence: develop the necessary ability, experience, and knowledge yourself.

Why Managers Fail to Empower

• Fails due to inhibitors often found in the managers, not the subordinate.

  • Attitudes About Subordinates: manager’s belief that employees are incompetent and uninterested (Theory X mindset).

  • Personal Insecurities: manager’s fear of losing recognition, rewards, or control if they empower others.

  • Need for Control: an overwhelming desire to be in charge and to direct and govern every detail.

Fostering Engagement

• The process by which a manager gets another person involved in doing work and helps them to succeed. (A manager’s external act of delegation).

Key Decision 1: Deciding When to Engage Others (The Test):

• Does the other person have the necessary information or expertise (more qualified)?

• Is their commitment critical to successful implementation?

• Will engagement expand their capabilities (development)?

• Is there sufficient time to engage? (If not, engagement may be problematic).

Key Decision 2: Deciding Whom to Engage

• The Goal: choose between engaging individuals or a team.

• The manager must consider the task complexity, employee expertise, and the need for synergy to make the best choice.

Key Decision 3: Deciding How to Engage Part 1

1. Begin with the End in Mind: Articulate desired result first.

2. Identify Boundaries: clearly state rules, procedures, and deadlines.

3. Specify the Level of Initiative: define how much freedom the employee has (e.g., recommend vs. act independently).

4. Allow Participation: give people an opportunity to decide when or how to complete tasks.

5. Match Authority with Responsibility: ensure the person has the power needed to accomplish the task.

Key Decision 3: Deciding How to Engage Part 2

6. Provide Adequate Support: Ensure sufficient resources and bestow credit generously.

7. Focus Accountability on Results: measure the outcome, not the process (autonomy).

8. Be Consistent: adhere to the principles of fairness and reliability (trust).

9. Avoid Upward Delegation: do not reassume tasks that you have handed off.

10. Clarify Consequences for Failure: ensure the employee understands the impact of task failure.

Upwards Delegation

• The process where an employee has a delegated tasks back to the manager who delegated it (i.e., the manager reassumes the task).

• Why it’s Harmful: inhibits employee self-determination and reinforces managerial control/insecurity.

Empowerment is Internal

It’s the feeling of self-efficacy, determination, and meaning (the 5 dimensions).

Delegation is the Action

Managers empower through engagement (i.e., delegation) following clear principles for when and how.

Trust is the Foundation

Empowerment cannot exist without trust (reliability, fairness, competence).

Manage Yourself First

The biggest inhibitors to empowerment are often the manager’s own insecurity and need for control.

Which of the following is considered an inhibitor to a manager's use of empowerment?

a. The manager's personal insecurities or fear of losing rewards/recognition.

b. The use of a "pull" strategy instead of a "push" strategy.

c. The manager's high level of personal competence.

d. The employee's lack of relevant technical information.

a. The manager's personal insecurities or fear of losing rewards/recognition.

You have recently been promoted. In looking through the prior supervisor's records, you note that she had regular meetings with her employees both individually and as a team. The meetings seemed to focus on how important the individual's and the team's efforts were to the organization's objective. What was this supervisor good at?

a. Modeling

b. Providing resources

c. Providing information

d. Providing support

d. Providing support

The guideline that fosters activities to ensure that people's right brain is involved in work as well as their left brain and to provide positive energy to people is related to which dimension(s) of empowerment?

a. Meaningfulness

b. Personal consequence

c. Trust

d. Self-efficacy and meaningfulness

d. Self-efficacy and meaningfulness

According to the textbook, Empowerment is best described as a "pull" strategy because it:

a. Relies on external incentives to induce employee compliance.

b. Requires the manager to constantly monitor employee progress.

c. Energizes intrinsic encouragement, drawing motivation from the employee's internal drive.

d. Forces the employee to accept responsibility for all outcomes.

c. Energizes intrinsic encouragement, drawing motivation from the employee's internal drive.

When a manager provides an employee with clear rules, procedures, and deadlines for a task, they are following which principle of deciding how to engage?

a. Avoid upward delegation.

b. Identify boundaries.

c. Allow participation.

d. Focus accountability on results.

b. Identify boundaries.

After spending the weekend getting up early, and spending a lot of money to have the pleasure of working up a sweat in the cross-country ski park, you decide to empower your employees by capitalizing on some of the principles of recreation. Which attributes of recreation should be fostered?

1) Clear goals, 2) Clearly defined out of bounds behavior, and 3) Generous scorekeeping.

a. Only 1

b. All three attributes

c. Only 1 and 3

d. Only 1 and 2

d. Only 1 and 2

You coach high school sports. Your team has lost 37 games in a row prior to your arrival. Having returned from an empowerment seminar, you decide what is best for your players is to model the correct behaviors. Which of the following choices is best?

a. Invite players from the 2020 state championship team to talk to your players.

b. Encourage the team to imagine going undefeated next year.

c. Invite players from the 2020 state championship team to talk to your team and demonstrate the desired behaviors yourself (you were an all-star).

d. Throw a pep rally with community members to show the team their local support.

c. Invite players from the 2020 state championship team to talk to your team and demonstrate the desired behaviors yourself (you were an all-star).

Which dimension of empowerment is defined as the feeling that one has the capability to perform a specific task successfully?

a. Personal Consequence

b. Self-determination

c. Trust

d. Self-efficacy

d. Self-efficacy

Which of the following questions is NOT one of the criteria a manager should consider when deciding when to engage (delegate to) another person?

a. Is there sufficient time to engage others?

b. Will engagement expand the other person’s capabilities?

c. Is the other person’s commitment critical to successful implementation?

d. Does the other person have a high Need for Power (nPow)?

d. Does the other person have a high Need for Power (nPow)?

According to Chapter 8, the guideline to model the behaviors you want others to achieve is related to which dimension(s) of empowerment?

a. Self-efficacy and trust only

b. Only self-efficacy

c. All five dimensions

d. Self-efficacy and self-determination only

c. All five dimensions