YOU wiLl LEARN
In this course, you’ll learn:
How to disempower your team by accident
Small ways to empower your team
The difference between mentoring, teaching and coaching
Identifying which your team member needs
KEY CONCEPTS
A quick intro to empowerment.
The environment we create as leaders directly influences how our team experiences what is possible at work.
For example:
A culture of empowerment = someone believes they can take positive action.
An environment of disempowerment = they believe taking action is pointless.
download accompanying materials
Why think about empowerment at work?
Empowered people take positive action more often. They seek feedback, and crave to make productive progress. They believe that progress will happen as a result of their actions.
Disempowered action doubt their abilities or influence. As a result, they become reliant on being told what to do or stop taking action altogether. They lack the faith that progress will happen as a result of their actions.
As a leader, it’s your responsibility to create an environment where they are empowered by focussing on celebrating their strengths, choices and acknowledging their progress.
Why celebrate the wins at work?
Researchers have discovered in the pursuit of motivating employees that one element outperforms the rest: a sense of progress.
When employees experience a sense of accomplishment they are more motivated to take positive action.
The researchers in a study of 12,000 diary entries and 200 participants discovered small wins, celebrated and acknowledged regularly were the number one determinant of positive action at work.
“Of all the things that can boost emotions and motivation during a work day, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work.
The more frequently people experience that sense of progress, the more likely they are to be creatively productive in the long run.
Whether they are trying to solve a scientific mystery or simply produce a high-quality product or service, everyday progress, even a small win, can make all the difference in how they feel and perform.”
What does this mean for you as a leader?
Pausing regularly to acknowledge progress, big and small, can immediately empower your team.
3 tools to practise empowering your team.
In addition to celebrating the wins, you can use the tools of teaching, coaching and mentoring.
Here’s a quick intro into each skill.
Teaching = you show someone how to do it. E.g. a how to, or training.
Coaching = you help someone else figure out how they’d do it. E.g ask them questions.
Mentoring = you share how you did it. E.g. your lived experience.
download accompanying materials
What tool to use for which team member?
Download this cheat sheet to outline what team member will benefit from each skill.
What can you do today?
Here are six ways you can immediately empower your team, today:
Celebrate the small wins.
Give escalating pieces of responsibility and authority.
Share specific feedback on why something worked.
Share what they do that benefits you specifically.
Give them options on how they do the thing.
Give them feedback after a meeting to outline how they could go to the next level in future.