You’ve locked in a winning strategy, your leaders have developed a compelling roadmap and cascaded clear plans across the organisation.
You expected to see more ownership and initiative across your team, but something is holding them back - you need to pick up the pace to hit your goals.
Today’s world is dynamic and challenging, and it takes all the experience, expertise, creativity and collaboration of your team to execute even the best strategy.
The question leaders are asking is - how do I empower my team to deliver a breakthrough in performance ?
The reality is, we can’t empower people - we can only create an environment where people feel empowered.
Here are three ways to build an environment of empowerment:
- ‘Always a more beautiful answer, who asks a more beautiful question’. Our minds can’t resist a question, and when thoughtful questions are used to build new perspectives and insights, they also show respect, build trust and shared responsibility. Successful leaders know they don’t have all the answers, but they have confidence they can ask questions to activate the thinking of others.
- Breakthrough performance is built on learning and to learn, it is necessary to take risks. When we play it safe, we take small steps towards our goals, but for the big leaps forward, we need to take risks. While not every risk will pay off as expected, every risk will give valuable learning, and create insights. Successful leaders focus on making sure the learning is realised and translated into new thinking that will lead to solutions.
- Recognition is more than celebrating success. It’s important to celebrate achievements and milestones - it’s how we know that we are making progress and helps us to feel like winners. Recognition is a moment of profound connection, when the ‘what’ of the achievement is complimented with recognition of ‘how’ it was achieved and ‘why’ it was important. Successful leaders seize every opportunity to connect, knowing that in that moment of recognition, the individual or team feels truly seen and appreciated.
The challenge is not to empower your team, but to create an environment of empowerment - an environment where everyone feels confident and safe to bring their best to every interaction, every day.