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Empowerment?

The reason I titled this post with a question mark is that I believe empowerment to be a very misused term.

Here's the Cambridge dictionary definition:


Of course, you know this already.
Yet for some, "to empower" has become synonymous with "to abrogate responsibility"

Or in other words, passing the buck to your team:

 'boss we need help dealing with team x'
'you're empowered to deal with that'

 This is just crappy leadership.

 Of course, you have to empower people so you're not a blocker.
Of course, you have to give people additional responsibility to help them develop beyond their current role.

But when you 'empower ' someone, you retain the accountability overall.  It's not a get-out-of-jail-free card to blame them if things don't go as planned or to turn around months later and say 'well you can't complain.  I empowered you to do it and you failed'

 No.  If you're my boss and I fail.  We both failed.  You can't be unapproachable or unavailable and then complain that I didn't ask for help.

That's your job.

 --- As a side note, it always astounds me to see perfectly intelligent project managers understand this concept as it relates to them and their boss, yet entirely miss the point as it relates to their project team.  No matter how much responsibility is shared out amongst members of the team, YOU are still accountable. So tempting as you might find it to throw an unsuspecting team member 'under the bus' (it's not the 1980s, stop being a pest), it almost always reflects badly on you. ---

Some don'ts and do's.
Don't micro manage me
Do give me the freedom to be creative (if there's a 
level of trust I'll discuss it with you anyway)

Don't make me bring every decision to you (I'll either feel you don't trust me or that it's a reflection of your own insecurity)
Do let me make the day to day decisions (that's what 
you're paying me for after all) and trust that I'll 
come to you where required (albeit with a set of 
options or solutions)

Don't make me feel that being empowerment means I'm supposed to know it all and can't ask questions.
Do be there for support and advice when I need it.
(Especially true for experienced PMs in a new organisation 
- remember most inductions are pretty basic so 
on day 1 I'm unlikely to know exactly how 
you implement all of your processes)

Don't blame me when something goes off track.
Do make success and failure a shared 
endeavour (if I'm well supported and delivering, 
it looks like you run a tight ship).

If you know a leader in need of taking responsibility lock them in a room with this video featuring ex-Navy Seal and motivational legend Jocko Willink:


Video by TEDx Talks.

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