EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT---PRINCIPLES

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Top 10 Principles of Employee Empowerment
From Susan M. Heathfield,
Your Guide to Human Resources.
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The Credo of an Empowering Manager
Looking for real management advice about people? Your goal is to create a work environment in which people are empowered, productive, contributing, and happy. Don't hobble them by limiting their tools or information. Trust them to do the right thing. Get out of their way and watch them catch fire.

These are the ten most important principles for managing people in a way that reinforces employee empowerment, accomplishment, and contribution. These management actions enable both the people who work with you and the people who report to you to soar.

1. Demonstrate You Value People
Your regard for people shines through in all of your actions and words. Your facial expression, your body language, and your words express what you are thinking about the people who report to you. Your goal is to demonstrate your appreciation for each person's unique value. No matter how an employee is performing on their current task, your value for the employee as a human being should never falter and always be visible.
More about communication and value:

Listen With Your Eyes: Tips for Understanding Nonverbal Communication
Interpersonal Communication Dynamics
You Can Make Their Day: Ten Tips for the Leader
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2. Share Leadership Vision
Help people feel that they are part of something bigger than themselves and their individual job. Do this by making sure they know and have access to the organization's overall mission, vision, and strategic plans.
More about vision:

Build a Strategic Framework: Mission Statement, Vision, Values ...
Leadership Vision
3. Share Goals and Direction
Share the most important goals and direction for your group. Where possible, either make progress on goals measurable and observable, or ascertain that you have shared your picture of a positive outcome with the people responsible for accomplishing the results.
More about goals and direction:

Beyond Traditional Smart Goals
The Darker Side of Goal Setting: Why Goal Setting Fails ...
4. Trust People
Trust the intentions of people to do the right thing, make the right decision, and make choices that, while maybe not exactly what you would decide, still work.
More about trust:

Trust Rules: The Most Important Secret About Trust
Inspirational Quotes: Trust and Trustworthiness
5. Provide Information for Decision Making
Make certain that you have given people, or made sure that they have access to, all of the information they need to make thoughtful decisions.
More about decision making:

Preventing Predictable Decision Making Errors
How to Involve Employees in Decision Making
6. Delegate Authority and Impact Opportunities, Not Just More Work
Don't just delegate the drudge work; delegate some of the fun stuff, too. You know, delegate the important meetings, the committee memberships that influence product development and decision making, and the projects that people and customers notice. The employee will grow and develop new skills. Your plate will be less full so you can concentrate on contribution. Your reporting staff will gratefully shine - and so will you.
More about delegation:

How and When to Empower People
Tips for Effective Delegation
Why Employees Don't Do What You Want Them to Do
Play Well With Others: Develop Effective Work Relationships
7. Provide Frequent Feedback
Provide frequent feedback so that people know how they are doing. Sometimes, the purpose of feedback is reward and recognition. People deserve your constructive feedback, too, so they can continue to develop their knowledge and skills.
More about feedback:

How To Provide Feedback That Has an Impact
Performance Management: You Get What You Request and Reward
Coaching for Improved Performance
8. Solve Problems: Don't Pinpoint Problem People
When a problem occurs, ask what is wrong with the work system that caused the people to fail, not what is wrong with the people. Worst case response to problems? Seek to identify and punish the guilty. (Thank you, Dr. Deming.)
More about problem solving:

Why Employees Don't Do What You Want Them to Do
Fight for What's Right: Ten Tips to Encourage Meaningful Conflict
9. Listen to Learn and Ask Questions to Provide Guidance
Provide a space in which people will communicate by listening to them and asking them questions. Guide by asking questions, not by telling grown up people what to do. People generally know the right answers if they have the opportunity to produce them. When an employee brings you a problem to solve, ask, "what do you think you should do to solve this problem?" Or, ask, "what action steps do you recommend?" Employees can demonstrate what they know and grow in the process.
More about listening and asking questions:

Communication Success Tips: Listen to Understand
Communication Success Tips: Listen With Full Attention
10. Help Employees Feel Rewarded and Recognized for Empowered Behavior
When employees feel under-compensated, under-titled for the responsibilities they take on, under-noticed, under-praised, and under-appreciated, don’t expect results from employee empowerment. The basic needs of employees must feel met for employees to give you their discretionary energy, that extra effort that people voluntarily invest in work.
More about employee reward and recognition for empowerment:

The Power of Positive Employee Recognition
What Employees Want From Work: Employee Motivation
Employee Recognition Rocks: Kick Employee Recognition Up a Notch
Suggested Reading
How to Demonstrate Respect at Work
Twenty Dumb Things Organizations Do
What Great Managers Do Differently
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Books That Enlighten Management Thinking
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Motivation and a Profitable Business Are All About the Managers...Duh!
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