Empowerment

I have a School of Entrepreneurship I created.  It’s a complete multi-year course for those that have their own business.  You can learn more at thesoe.com.

In it I have a lesson on empowering others.  There are four levels of having others do things –

Abdication – I don;t know what to do – you do it.

Allocation – Here’s some work to do.

Delegation – Here’s some of my work to do.

Empowerment – “I know you can do this.  I believe in you.  I want you to take continued responsibility for this outcome.  Here’s how results are measured and who to report them to and how often.  Here are the resources available to you.  Will you help me?”  “Yes” ……”OK.”……”You are in charge of this.”

Empowerment is not only way better than allocation or delegation, but it creates more leaders and frees you up to move on to other more important things. 

We all have people who can do more if we only empower them to do so.