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Empowerment is an effective management tool that assists the leaders in pursuing the goals of the company by granting employees the decision-making right. This kind of incentive not only gives authority to people who usually do not have it but also increases their accountability and responsibility. Moreover, for those employees who have organizational talents, it is a way to develop their leadership qualities and to show their potential, which increases the level of self-confidence and personal value. However, empowerment also implies shared responsibility for all major and minor decisions, no matter what consequences they might have (Lashley, 2012).
Delegation of authority is another management tool that, unlike empowerment, consists in allocating tasks to each employee without giving him/her any right to decide anything independently. The manager specifies in detail what to do and sets the deadline for completing the task. To delegate authority means to choose the one who is going to represent the others. As a result, the employees act only within the limits set by the manager and are not encouraged to show any initiative. The responsibility for both success and failure rests totally with the leader (Lashley, 2012).
The basic differences between the two approaches can be summed up as follows (Lashley, 2012):
- Delegation of authority assigns duties to individuals prescribing them what to do while empowerment presupposes granting employees the decision-making power, which makes them accountable for the results of their actions.
- Empowerment gives managers more work in the short term and less work in the long run whereas delegation of authority works in the opposite way.
- When you accept empowerment as the main strategy, you are on the periphery of the leadership activity while with delegation of authority you find yourself in the center.
- Empowerment produces leaders and partners whereas delegation of power results in the increased number of followers.
- Delegation implies that power remains in a single hand while empowerment presupposes division of power;
- Delegation of power makes the leader the only responsible side unlike empowerment, which encourages shared responsibility.
- Empowerment boosts employees’ confidence level, which is not the case with delegation of authority.
- If you are an employee, you can rely on your common sense in decisions when you have to do with empowerment but you cannot do it with a delegation of authority as the major strategy.
Empowerment of employees as a management tool directly affects strategy execution. The point is that successful strategy formulation and application necessitates the engagement of representatives of all levels of the organizational hierarchy. Key people must be selected among middle managers and lower-level workers. It is a mistake to believe that they will stay detached from the strategy because, in fact, lower-level employees will be the ones to execute it, which means that they are able to see its flaws from the practical point of view. If the leaders use empowerment instead of simply allocating tasks, they encourage employees to contribute to the development of the strategy.
Empowerment improves its quality as employees (who have specialized operational knowledge) are capable of assessing whether it is sound, realistic, and effective. Moreover, participation in strategy development increases the commitment of employees to the organizational policy. Unless the parties involved are motivated, they are unlikely to succeed. The feeling of personal contribution makes employees work harder on the strategy. Empowerment is especially important for increasing motivation when the new strategy is going to bring about unpleasant changes (such as restructuring). Besides, it allows top managers to stay in touch with lower levels, see problems they encounter, and address them already at the development stage (modifying the strategy accordingly). Thus, the strategy can be made more flexible and sustainable due to the implementation of the empowerment approach (Lashley, 2012).
Reference
Lashley, C. (2012). Empowerment: HR strategies for service excellence. New York, NY: Routledge.
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