{"id":5554,"date":"2016-12-01T14:14:01","date_gmt":"2016-12-01T20:14:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/?p=5554"},"modified":"2016-12-01T14:14:01","modified_gmt":"2016-12-01T20:14:01","slug":"3-ways-to-put-the-power-back-in-empowerment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2016\/12\/01\/3-ways-to-put-the-power-back-in-empowerment\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Ways to Put the Power Back in Empowerment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of all leadership values, few can have as positive an impact on the culture and performance of a team than that of empowerment. Empowerment sees the transfer of authority and responsibility transferred from one leader to another. And when you have a team of truly empowered leaders, the results can be tremendously impactful.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The challenge can be in understanding how to move beyond the\u00a0value<\/u><\/strong>\u00a0of empowerment, and to the actual\u00a0practice<\/u>\u00a0<\/strong>of empowerment. In other words, leaders are often left to ask, “How do I put the Power in Empowerment?”<\/p>\n

That question takes me back to a time when I was the recipient of such empowerment.<\/p>\n

I had joined the staff of a church of about 2500 people in the role of executive pastor. To ensure my success, the senior pastor had done far more than simply given me an important sounding title, a lofty place in our organization chart, and a corner office.<\/p>\n

He went to great lengths to ensure I was fully empowered to carry out the leadership assignment I had been given.<\/p>\n

Specifically, he practiced three critical empowerment principles:<\/p>\n

Empowerment requires public affirmation<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In my first meeting with the full staff, the senior pastor placed his hand on my shoulder and said, \u201cTeam, I want you to know that when Scott speaks, he is speaking for me. He carries the same weight as when you are talking to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Immediately the entire team knew that I had been fully empowered to take on this role.<\/p>\n

Empowerment requires development<\/strong><\/h2>\n

While he believed in my ability to grow into the role, he also knew that he had a responsibility to provide me with ongoing, consistent coaching.<\/p>\n

Every week we would meet to discuss my progress, my decisions, my challenges and my successes.\u00a0Everything<\/em>\u00a0became a coaching moment.<\/p>\n

The reason for this was simple; he knew that in order to empower me to be successful in the role, it meant he had to invest his time, expertise and experience into me.<\/p>\n

Empowerment requires development.<\/p>\n

Empowerment requires backup<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Even when I had made a bad call, the senior pastor never chastised me publicly. In private he would certainly make sure I had learned from the misstep, but in public he made it clear that I had his full support.<\/p>\n

As leaders, we have the opportunity and the responsibility to close the power chasm between ourselves and those we lead.<\/p>\n

To do so requires more than good intentions. It requires purposeful action steps.<\/p>\n

Try implementing the steps taken by my senior pastor.<\/p>\n

Because the value of empowerment is of no value without the practices of empowerment.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of all leadership values, few can have as positive an impact on the culture and performance of a team than that of empowerment. Empowerment sees the transfer of authority and responsibility transferred from one leader to another. And when you have a team of truly empowered leaders, the results can be tremendously impactful. The challenge…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,738,478,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action","category-effectiveness-2","category-featured","category-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5554"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5560,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5554\/revisions\/5560"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}