The balance between management and employee empowerment has to be struck, not by thinkers, but by practicing managers.

Turning their aims into successful actions, forces managers to master five basic operations:

setting objectives,

organizing the group,

motivating and communicating,

measuring performance, and

developing people, including yourself.

These Management by Objectives (MBO) operations are all compatible with empowerment, if you follow the main principle of decentralization: telling people what is to be done, but letting them achieve it their own way. To make the principle work well, people need to be able to develop personally. Further, different people have different hierarchy of needs and, thus, need to be managed differently if they are to perform well and achieve their potential.

Employee Performance Management

3 MBO Basic Parts

6 MBO Stages

Empowerment vs. Delegation

Harness Your People for Competitive Advantage

Creative Leadership

DOs and DON'Ts

How To Lead Creative People

 

 

Empowerment recognizes "the demise" of the command-and-control system, but remains a term of power and rank. A manager should view members of his or her team much as a conductor regards the players in the orchestra, as individuals whose particular skills contribute to the success of the enterprise.

While people are still subordinates, the superior is increasingly dependent on the subordinates for getting results in their area of responsibility, where they have the requisite knowledge.

In turn, these subordinates depend on their superior for direction and "above all, to define what the 'score' if for the entire organization, that is, what are standards and values, performance and results."

Empower and Energize Employees

Suggestion Systems

Intrapreneurship

Super-Leadership

Inspirational Leader

Leading by Serving

Management-Leadership Synergy