6 af08 wsi&ii the road to empowerment

8/12/2019 6 AF08 WSI&II the Road to Empowerment

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To make empowerment successful, executives need tostart with some probing questions about what this concept means-

and about their own management style.

l%e Road to Empowerment:SevenQuestionsEvery Leader Should ConsiderROBERT E. QUINN

0 rganizations are demanding more fromtheir employees than ever before. High-er customer expectations, increased global-ization, more sophisticated technology-these are a few of the conditions at work. Itsan environment where traditional command-and-control hierarchies are increasingly lessappropriate. Instead, employees must learnto take initiative, be creative, and accept re-sponsibility for their actions. They need to beUempoweredN-or so a growing consensusindicates.Despite feelings that empowerment cangive an organization competitive advantage,and despite the fact that many managersagree that empowerment is desirable , com-panies often run into problems with imple-mentation. This article explores the reasonsthis promising concept often proves elusive.To do so, we draw on over a decade of expe-rience working with organizations as theystruggled with empowerment, as well asfrom intensive research that examined theantecedents, consequences, and processes ofimplementing employee empowerment inlarge organizations. Taken as a whole, thisresearch points to seven key questions man-agers must confront if they hope to imple-

GRETCHEN M. SPREITZER

ment empowerment effect ively. The sevenquestions are shown in Exhibit 1. A discus-sion of each follows.What Do We Mean When We SayWe Want to Empower People?Empowerment is a complex concept. It tendsto mean different things to different people.In fact, in our own work, we find two con-trasting perspectives that often come intoplay when people think about empower-ment. Consider the following experience.A few years algo, we worked with a For-tune 50 manufacturing company that, likemany companies today, had become unre-sponsive to the changing needs of the exter-nal business environment. The top manage-ment team could see that the company wason a downward trajectory. They concludedthat they needed to empower their work-force and proceeded to make this a top pri-ority in their business plan. After a frustrat-ing year with lit tle apparent progress, theyasked us to analyze why so little had beenachieved.We began by individually interviewingthe corporations 12 most senior executives.


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EXHIBIT 1CRIT ICAL QUESTIONS ON EMPOWERMENT

1. What do we mean when we say we want toempower people? 5. How do people develop a sense of empow-erment?2. What are the characteristics of an empoweredperson? 6. What organizational characteristics facilitateemployee empowerment?3. Do we really need empowered people? 7. What can leaders do to facili tate employee4. Do we really want empowered people? empowerment?

We asked each to define empowerment andto describe what would be necessary to facil-itate the concept. The interv iews were in-sightful for their lack of consensus.Approximately one-half of the execu-tives believed that empowerment was aboutdelegation and accountability, i.e., it was atop-down process wherein senior manage-ment developed a clear vis ion and then com-municated specific plans and assignments tothe rest of the organization. The senior man-agers would provide employees with the in-formation and resources needed to accom-plish their tasks, then let employees makethe required procedural changes and processimprovements. The results, in their view,would be greater managerial control as wellas increased clarification and simplificationof employees work.In short, this group believed that em-powerment was about delegating decis ionmaking within a set of clear boundaries.Their implicit strategy for empowermentwas:n Start at the top;

n Clarify the organizations mission,vision, and values;n Clearly specify the tasks, roles, andrewards for employees;n Delegate responsib ility; andn Hold people accountable for results.The other group of execu tives saw em-powerment much differently. They believedthat it was about r isk taking, growth, andchange. Empowerment meant trusting peo-ple and tolerating their imperfections. Whenit came to rules, they believed that the exist-38 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAM ICS

ing structu res often presented a barrier todoing the right thing for the company.They assumed that newly empowered em-ployees would naturally make some mis-takes, but that mistakes should not be pun-ished. Empowered employees would askfor forgiveness rather than permission.They would be entrepreneurs and risk tak-ers, acting with a sense of ownership in thebusiness. They would engage in creativeconflict, constantly challenging each other.Exposing and resolving differences wouldcreate a synergy.In short, this group of executives sawempowerment as a process of risk taking andpersonal growth. Their implicit strategy forempowerment was:n Start at the bottom by understandingthe needs of the employees;

n Model empowered behavior for theemployees;n Build teams to encourage cooperativebehavior;n Encourage intelligent risk taking; andn Trust people to perform.These two perspectives are very differ-ent. We call the first, with its top-downview, the mechanistic approach to em-powerment. The second, with its bottom-upview, we label the organic approach. Themost important contrast between the twoinvolves the implicit but potentially volatileassumptions people make about trust andcontrol.When we relayed our observations tothe senior management team, they respond-ed with a heavy silence. Finally, someone


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from the first group voiced a core concern First , he emphasized the need to share in-about the second groups perspective: We fovmafio~ so that people know how they andcant afford loose cannons around here. A the company are performing, and if their ac-person from the second group retorted, tions are making a difference. Opening theWhen was the last time you saw a cannon books to employees and disclosing sensitiveof any kind around here? information about the companys market

One group feared empowerment would createYoose cannons. A person from the second groupretorted, When was the last time you saw acannon of any kind around here?

The exchange ignited an intense confl ict.Neither group was wil ling to understand theothers perspective. Not surprisingly, themanagement team eventually dropped thenotion of empowerment from its businessplans.The contrasting set of assumptions thatemerged in this study made it clear to uswhy these senior managers had made littleheadway. Such confl icts are common in con-temporary organizations and represent a pri-mary reason that empowerment efforts arelikely to fail. Obviously, then, people intend-ing to implement a program of empower-ment must be prepared to confront differentimplici t assumptions and perspectives. Aswe will see later, the successful implementa-tion of empowerment does not require achoice between the mechanistic or organicviews. It requires something much morecomplex-the integration of both.What Are the Characteristics of anEmpowered Person?Most practitioners as well as authors of pop-ular business books advocate the mechanis-tic approach to empowerment. In a recent is-sue of Organizational Dynamics, for example,W. Alan Randolph articulated three stepsnecessary to navigate the journey to em-powerment.

share and growth opportunities, as well asinformation about the competitions strate-gies, are steps in the right direction. Manysuccessful companies do just that. Frito-Lay,for instance, has computerized its entireproduct development system so that every-one in the organization has informationabout sales volumes across product lines.The Honda plant in Marysville, Ohio, has alarge scoreboard that gives ongoing infor-mation about the plants performance.Second, Randolph emphasized the needto impose a structure on employees. Creatinga clear vision, clarifying organizational goals,and identifying individual roles help to setdirection. In Randolphs concept of empow-erment, decision-making rules and perfor-mance management processes ensure em-ployee accountability for the decisions made.Again, successful empowerment programsdo follow this principle. The Ritz-Carlton, forexample, has created a clear vision on the im-portance of exceeding customer expecta-tions, but imposed equally clear guidelines.Employees should make every effort possi-ble to satisfy a disgruntled guest, but the costof doing so is limited to $2,500.Finally, Randolph advocated the develop-ment of teams as replacement for traditionalhierarchy. Such teams need a strong leader-capable of providing guidance, encourage-ment, and support-to help them overcome

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Robert E. Quinn holds the M.L. Tracy Colle-giate Professorship at the University ofMichigan Business School. His research in-terests focus on organizational change, lead-ership, culture, paradox, personal growth,and transformation., Professor Quinn is theauthor of numerous publications. Recentbooks include Beyond Rational Manage-ment: Mastering the Paradoxes and Com-peting Demand s of High Performance; Be-coming a Master Manager: A Com petencyBased Framew ork; Deep Change: Discover-ing the Leader Within; and Diagnosing andChanging Organizational Culture (forthcom -ing).

I any difficulties they may encounter. Some or-ganizations have, indeed, become totallyI team-based. For example, the insurance div i-

sion of Aid Association for Lutherans, a largefraternal benefits organization, replaced itsmultilevel hierarchy with regional self-man-aging teams that are responsible for servicingclients. Each team does everything from un-derwriting to claims.David Bowen and Edward E. Lawler IIIoffer similar prescriptions in their researchon empowerment. In addition to emphasiz-ing the need to share information and devel-op teams that have decision-making power,they also emphasize the importance of train-ing and rewards. Firs t, they suggest that em-ployees need relevant training and knowledgeabout how to be empowered. They mustlearn how to work collaboratively. They musthave tools for problem solving. They mustunderstand company performance. Again,examples of this element of empowermentare commonplace. For example, JohnsonvilleFoods brought in finance professors from alocal community college to teach their em-ployees, many with no more than a highschool education, how to read financial state-ments.

Second, Bowen and Lawler emphasizethe importance of rewards. Empoweredemployees must be compensated for theirincreased responsibility and accountability.Intel, for example, offers stock options to allemployees so that they can benefit from astrong company performance.In short, these authors argue that man-agers can empower employees when theyshare information, provide structure, devel-op a team-based alternative to hierarchy, of-fer relevant tra ining opportunities, and re-ward employees for the risks and initiativesthey are expected to take. All these practicesare part of the empowerment process.They are, however, incomplete by them-selves. Often, empowerment programs thatemphasize all of the above elements st ill donot achieve the desired results. Employeesare still hesitant about taking initiative andremain risk-averse. We suggest that thesepractices are biased toward ane particularly

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important and incorrect assumption in themechanistic model--that empowerment issomething managers do to their people.

Our research on the characteristics ofempowered people suggests a more complexview, namely, that empowerment must bedefined in terms of fundamental beliefs andpersonal orientations. This finding emergedfrom in-depth interviews in which we askedindividuals to describe experiences of em-powerment and disempowerment, as well asfrom our analysis of extensive survey re-search data. All in all, this investigation iden-tified four characteristics most empoweredpeople have in common.

n Empowered people have a sense ofself-determination (this means that they arefree to choose how to do their work; they arenot micro-managed).n Empowered people have a sense ofmeaning (they feel that their work is impor-tant to them; they care about what they aredoing).n Empowered people have a sense ofcompetence (this means that they are confi-dent about their abili ty to do their work well;they know they can perform).

n Fina lly, empowered people have asense of impact (this means that people be-lieve they can have influence on their workunit; others listen to their ideas).These are not specific management prac-tices, but rather characteristics reflecting per-sonal experiences or beliefs about their role inthe organization. Empowerment, then, is notsomething that management does to employ-

ees, but rather a mind-set that employeeshave about their role in the organization.Whi le management can create a context thatis more empowering, employees must chooseto be empowered. They must see themselvesas having freedom and discret ion; they mustfeel personally connected to the organization,confident about their abilit ies, and capable ofhaving an impact on the system in which theyare embedded.Efforts that assume an empowered em-ployee is a passive recipient of a brilliant pro-gram design are doomed. Empowered peo-ple empower themselves. Organizational

Gretchen Spreitzer is a faculty m ember inthe Manageme nt and Organization Depart-ment at the University of Southern CaliforniaMarshall School of Business. She is also afaculty aff i l iate of both the Center for EffectiveOrganizations and the Leadership Institute atUSC . Her research focuses on the areas ofemployee empo werment and managerial de-velopment, particularly within a context of or-ganizational and strateg ic change and de-cline. She has published widely in prominen tjournals such as the Academy of Manage-ment Journal, Academy of Managem ent Re-view, Human Relations, Industr ial Labor Re-lations Re view, ,Journal of Applied BehavioralScience, Journal of Applied Psychology, Jour-nal of Managem ent, Journal of ManagementInquiry, and Research in OrganizationalChange and Developmen t. She has consultedon these issues for organizations in the auto-motive, aerospace, f inancial services, andhealth care industr ies. Dr. Spreitzer was re-cently named an Ascendant Scholar by theWestern Acade my of Managem ent, a recog-nit ion given to individuals who show early ca-reer promise of making major contr ibutions tothe study of management. She is on the edi-tor ial board of the Journal of Management In-quiry. She is also a member of the Academ yof Manageme nt (where she served on the ex-ecutive board of the Organization Develop -ment and Change Division). She completedher doctoral work at the University of MichiganSchool of Business.

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characteristics can increase the likelihood ofthis happening, but most design assump-tions that we encounter fully miss this criti-cal point.

Do We Really Need Empowered People?In the world of global competition, flatorganizations, continuous change, and cus-tomer-focused efforts, empowerment hasbecome almost sacred. Most organizationsautomatically subscribe to the rhetoric ofempowerment.

But why? What do we gain from havingempowered people? The benefits describedin the popular business press are extensive,but not well documented. Seve ral findingsfrom our research on middle managers mayhelp fill this void.

We found, for example, that empoweredmiddle managers are significantly differentfrom their disempowered colleagues in sev-eral ways. First, empowered employees seethemselves as more effective in their workand, moreover, are evaluated as more effec-tive by those with whom they work. Second,they see themselves as innovative and showless fear of trying something new. (Again,their subordinates and superiors share thisview.) Third, empowered employees aretransformational in their leadership ability.They engage in upward influence and reportmaking second-order or quantum changeswhen stimulated to make change.Because of their strong sense of person-al meaning, empowered people are also seenas charismatic by the people who work forthem. This charisma facilitates their ability tobring transformationa l change to their orga-nization. In each case, people who rate them-selves as highly empowered provide sub-stantial benefits to their organ izations.Lets return to the question at hand-What do we really gain? The answer, itseems, is simply this: If a company wantsand needs people who are more effective,innovative, and transformational, thenempowerment appears to be worth the ef-fort. This , however, turns our attention to aslightly different but important question-42 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAM ICS

does the company really want this tohappen?

Do We Really Want Empowered People?Most top managers and supervisors wouldagree that the people in their organizationsare generally intelligent and have good in-tentions. And many are aware of the findingsdiscussed above regarding the benefits thatempowered people bring to the workplace.They have truthfully concluded that empow-ering people is the right thing to do.Yet, an all-too-familiar scenario often de-velops. Senior management designs an em-powerment program and announces, in oneway or another to employees, You are nowempowered-act accordingly. Employeesrespond enthusiastically, saying that theyhave been waiting to be empowered. Butnothing very different happens. In frustra-tion, management concludes, These peoplereally just want someone to tell them what todo. Why is this pattern so common?When thinking about ourse lves, most ofus are quite comfortable with notions of em-powerment, initiative, risk, personal growth,and trust. We become much less comfort-able, however, in thinking about these verysame characteristics when considering howwe manage others. We wonder how muchautonomy they can handle without becom-ing loose cannons.The reality is that many of us implic itlydiscourage empowerment by reinforcing or-ganizational structures and control systemsthat either intentionally or unintentiona llysend the message that we really do not trustpeople. These structures and control systemscreate pressu res for conformity rather thanencourage employee initiative and risk tak-ing. Our research has identified three majorbarriers , common to most large organiza-tions: a bureaucratic culture, mu lti-level con-flict, and personal time constraints.Bureaucratic culture. A bureaucratic cul-ture encompasses multiple layers of hierar-chy that impede change. It emphasizes themaintenance of the status quo through a


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EXHIBIT 2CYCLE OF EMPOWERMENT

Increased Self- LearningConfidenceJmpowermentof

Self Others

iNew Eiperiences

Perspectives

Redefinit ion of

Growth\

\Reinfotcement

t V Punishment

Innovative _I Disenchantmen tOutcomes

/+

DISEMPDWERINGYCLENew Patterns

Self Role of Action

strong tradition of top-down directives, thelack of a credible vision for the future, short-term managerial thinking, and a lack of man-agement support for real change. Moreover,this culture is often reinforced by a rewardsystem that emphasizes the status quo. Onemanagers comment, taken from our inter-views, says it all: To get an initiative ap-proved, five people must say yes; but to get itstopped, only one of the five has to say no.

Multi-level conflict. Conflict betweenfunctions results from a structure that createsstrong divisions between marketing, manu-facturing, customer services, and other areas.Conflic t among peers results, in part, from aperformance management system that pitspeople against each other for raises and pro-motions. Finally, conflict between managersand their employees over the means toachieve goals creates a hostile working envi-ronment in which people worry about pro-tecting themselves rather than doing what isright for the organization.Personal time constraints. Given the re-cent trend toward downsizing and layoffs ,one person may now be doing the job of two

or even three people. Employees often com-plain about having less and less time for fam-ily life. Working under these stressful condi-tions, they find it is very difficult to thinkabout initiating anything new.These three barriers are not the result ofbad intentions on the part of management;instead, they are natural consequences of theorganizing process. The primary goal of mostorganizations is routinization and the main-tenance of the status quo, not the encourage-ment: of risk , creativity , and change. No mat-ter how much top management says thatemployee empowerment is desired, the aver-age employee receives a subtle, but very clearmessage-Conform, dont rock the boat The organization becomes a well-structured,slow-moving ocean liner. And ocean linersdo not change course quick ly.To empower people, managers mustlower these barriers, all of which are sopowerful in maintaining control and order inthe system, but which also block employeeempowerment. Managers must be willing torelinquish control, to risk releasing thepotential of their people, to trust that

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employees wil l do the right thing if given thechance. Most of us would agree that givingup control is very difficult. Yet, any hesita-tion on the part of management sends mixedmessages. Though we want to be empow-ered ourselves, we may not really want ourpeople to be empowered.

How Do People Actually Develop aSense of Empowerment?Recall our earlie r point that empowerment isnot a set of management pract ices, but ratheran individual mind-set-a proactive orienta-tion regarding our role in the organization.How does this mind-set develop?

To answer this question, consider TheFord Motor Companys innovative programaimed at empowering an entire stratum ofmiddle managers. The program, known asLeadership Education and Development(LEAD), involved a one-week intensive ex-ecutive education experience followed sixmonths later by a two-and-a-half-day follow-up program. The first part of the programwas organized around parallel strategic, cu l-tural, and structural changes taking place inthe company. Program leaders shared sensi-tive information, typica lly reserved for topmanagers, about the companys strateg ic di-rection. Partic ipants had opportunity forboth personal reflection and in-depth cros s-functional discussions. They were asked toassess their own leadership behavior andalso received personal feedback from theirbosses, peers, and superiors. From our workwith the Ford LEAD program, we becameaware of an evolving cycle of personal em-powerment illustrated in Exhibit 2.The Ford LEAD program provided newexperiences and perspectives which in turnled the participants to redefine their ro les inthe organization-to think deeply abouthow they could refocus themselves in rela-tion to their work. They began to see theirroles differently-as partners in the businessrather than cogs in the wheel.This first stage of the process involvedan in-depth personal evaluation and cogni-tive reframing, which allowed individuals to44 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS

visualize themselves and their environmentthrough a different lens. This deep changereflected a second-order personal transfor-mation, a change in the indiv idua ls schemaor cause map.New approaches to old problems typi-cally accompanied this fresh interpretationof the situation. This redefinition of self androle caused individua ls to engage in newpatterns of action. They experimented without-of-the-box thinking and behavior. Theytook risks and tried unorthodox methods.Old habits were broken, and the partici-pants acted without going through tradi-tional channels. There was greater trust inthemselves and reliance on intuition andpure guts. In most cases, these new pat-terns of action were second-order or revolu-tionary changes instead of the more com-mon first-order or incremental changesindividuals typica lly initiated during em-powerment programs. Truly innovative out-comes resulted.When these innovative actions were re-inforced, the process continued. The indi-viduals reflected on and learned from theirnew experiences. When the new patterns ofaction were successful, they built on that suc-cess to stimulate future action. In caseswhere new patterns of action were not suc-cessful, they learned from their mistakes.They recognized the importance of a contin-uous learning mind-set and the need to re-main flexible and adaptable in response to achanging and ambiguous environment.Cognitions became increasingly complex,which allowed for greater learning andgrowth. This personal growth, in turn, led toincreased self-confidence.Typica lly, at this stage of the empower-ment process, participants felt highly inte-grated with and committed to the organiza-tion. What is more, those who worked withthe empowered person were likely to feelenergized themselves. These colleagueswere also more w illing to engage in risk tak-ing, test new ideas, and inspire co-workers todo the same. In this way, the process becamesynergistic. It drew individuals together tohigher leve ls of effort.


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Most of us crave a simple strategy and quickaction. Yet empowerment is anything but simpleand quick. It demands a willingness to embraceuncertainty, trust people, and exercise faith.

In short, these newly empowered partic-ipants empowered their associates throughtheir actions. They shared succes s stories andhelped one another diagnose situations todevelop appropriate coping strategies. In ad-dition, they built networks to expand theirpower base in the organization. These newexperiences and perspectives then stimulat-ed the indiv iduals to redefine, once again,themselves and their roles, and the processof empowerment continued.When the system did not reinforce thenew patterns of behavior, however, this dis-rupted the cyc le. Because empowerment in-cludes risk taking, it opens the possibility ofmaking mistakes. If those mistakes were pun-ished, then indiv iduals became disenchantedwith their new way of thinking and regressedto past behaviors. If they received no supportor reinforcement, then the cyc le of empower-ment was halted and individuals actually feltmore disempowered than before. They expe-rienced a sense of violation , feeling that theyhad been misled. It was not unusual to hearemployees say things like, The empower-ment effort was a fraud. No one here wantsreal empowerment. They just want people towork harder doing the same old thing.

However, when the system reinforcedindividual empowerment (this happenedover 90 percent of the time), the process wasmore regenerative and dynamic. It began bytransforming individuals sense of self, stim-ulated them to try new behaviors, helpedthem develop a continuous learning mind-set, and increased their self-conf idence. Theempowered individual then worked to drawothers into the process so that they too be-came empowered.

Clearly, the Ford LEAD program wasunique in its approach. But it does reveal anumber of general princip les that organiza-tions can use to facilitate the empowermentcycle.

What Organizational CharacteristicsFacilitate Employee Empowerment?When an organization decides to implementa new program, managers often say, Giveme specifics. Tell me what I need to do andwhen. Most of us crave a simple strategyand quick action. Yet empowerment is any-thing but simple and quick-it demands awillingness to embrace uncertainty, trustpeople, and exercise faith.

Reca ll, at the outset of this article, weidentified two different perspectives on em-powerment-one mechanistic and the otherorganic-and argued that neither perspectiveby itself provides a complete picture. Both areessen tial to susta in employee empowerment.The challenge thus becomes how to facilitateboth perspectives simultaneously. Based onour research, we suggest four key levers thatcan assist this integration.

The first lever is a clear vision and chal-lenge. High ly empowered people feel thatthey understand top managements vis ionand strateg ic direction for the organization.Given this understanding, they will morelikel y feel they have the capability to actautonomously in their work rather than waitfor permission and direction from top man-agement. Such a vision must also providechallenge to employees, stretching theircapability to improve themselves and theorganization.

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Ed Lawler does a beautiful job of articu-lating this lever in his recent book, From theGround I$. He emphasizes the importance ofdeveloping and communicating an organiza-tional miss ion in the form of a statement ex-press ing strategic intent-i.e., an animatingdream or stretch goal that energizes thecompany. Thus, strateg ic alignment is onekey organizational lever for empowerment.

The second lever is openness and team-work. For people to feel empowered, theymust fee l they are part of a corporate culturethat emphasizes the value of the organiza-tions human assets. The Levi Strauss missionstatement, for example, emphasizes this val-ue by saying, We want our people to feel re-spected, treated fairly , listened to, and in-volved. We want a company that our peopleare proud of and committed to, where all em-ployees have an opportunity to contribute,learn, grow, and advance. This type of em-phasis promotes openness and teamworkthrough participation in organizationa l deci-sion making. Empowered employees mustfeel that the people in their unit can work to-gether to solve problems-that employeesideas are valued and taken seriously.The third lever is discipline and control.High ly empowered people report that theirorganizations provide clear goals, clear linesof authority, and clear task responsibilities.While they have autonomy, they are awareof the boundaries of their decision-makingdiscretion. They know what they are re-sponsible for, and what others have respon-sibilit y for achieving. They have clear butchallenging goals and objectives alignedwith their leaders vision of the organization.This lever reduces the disabling uncertaintyand ambiguity that so often accompany em-powerment efforts.

Marriott, for example, has developedsafe zones so that employees understandwhich situations allow for discretionary deci-sion making and which do not. And as men-tioned earlier, the Ritz-Carlton sets limits onthe amounts that employees can spend toplease a disgruntled guest. Without this basiclevel of structure and control, employees ex-perience chaos rather than empowerment.46 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS

The fourth lever is support and a senseofse-curity. In order to feel that the system reallywants empowered employees, individualsneed a sense of soc ial support from their boss-es, peers, and subordinates. Employee effortsto take initiative and risk must be reinforcedrather than punished. If this support is miss-ing or weak, employees will worry aboutseeking permission before acting rather thanasking for forgiveness in case they make mis-takes. They must believe that the companywi ll support them as they learn and grow.An often-told story about UPS, now partof that companys culture, is worth repeat-ing. Some yea rs ago, a UPS employee or-dered an extra Boeing 737 to ensure timelydelivery of a trainload of packages left be-hind in the Christmas rush. Clearly, this em-ployee went beyond his zone of authority.However, rather than punish the employee,UPS praised his initiative and the story sur-vives as proof that the company stands be-hind such empowered efforts.These levers reflect both the mechanisticand organic perspectives on empowerment.To create an empowering environment,managers need to exhibit continuous long-term dedication to the management of allfour. It is only through the integration of themechanistic and organic perspective thatsustained leve ls of employee empowermentcan be achieved.

What Can Leaders Do to FacilitateEmployee Empowerment?Lets return, briefly , to our tale of the topmanagement team that couldnt agree onwhat empowerment meant. Unable to re-solve their conflicting assumptions on theroles of trust and control, they eventua llyasked us what we thought they should do.We answered by posing a fundamentalquestion: How many members of this man-agement team are empowered? The ques-tion proved to create more discomfort thandid the origina l revelation.This question raises the most fundamen-tal issue of all. It is nearly impossible for unem-powered people to empower others. Many execu-


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tives, even at the highest levels, are not, ac-cording to our earlier definition, empow-ered. When people say, Change begins atthe top, they usua lly mean programs mustbe designed at the top and cascaded downthe organizational hierarchy. They do notmean that the people at the top have to ac-tually change their behavior.

tality, i.e., If you want me to do something,give me a check list and I will get it done andthen go on to the next thing in my busy sched-ule. Most people who design empowermentprograms collude with this mentality by de-signing empowerment in a box programs.Once people check off an item from their list,they tend to forget about it and return to their

Gibe mostfundamental issue is this: It is nearlyimpossitde for unempowered people to empowerothers.

We believe, however, that this is exactlywhat empowerment requires. Our researchprovides some important insights on howthe behavior of top management mustchange in order for empowerment to takeroot in an organization. We will conveythese insights by posing two sets of ques-tions every executive, manager, and supervi-sor should ask himself or herself.Set 1: Some Hard Questions. The fourquestions in this set are as follows:n If a sense of a clear strategic vision is acharacteristic of an empowering environ-ment, am I continuously working to clarifythe sense of strateg ic direction for the peoplein my own stewardship?

H If openness and teamwork are charac-teristics of an empowering environment, amI continuously striving for participation andinvolvement in my own stewardship?n If discipline and control are character-ist ics of an empowering environment, am Icontinuously working to clarify expectationsregarding the goals, tasks, and lines of au-

thority in my own stewardship?n If support and security are character-ist ics of an empowering environment, am Icontinuously working to resolve the conflictsamong the people in my own stewardship?The questions all emphasize the wordcontinuously in an attempt to break throughthe human tendency to adopt a checklist men-

normal pattern of behavior. Unless we contin-piously monitor ourselves on our new behav-ior, change will not occur.Set 2: Some Harder Questions. If, assuggested above, creating an empoweredenvironment requires continuous attention

over time, then ernpowerment is hard work.Empowerment, however, requires evenmore. We consider now the most importantquestions of all-a series of questionsgrounded in our definition of empower-ment. Again we suggest that every leader inthe company must ask these questions ofhimself or herself:n To what extent do I have a sense ofmeaning and task alignment, and what can Ido to increase it?n To what extent do I have a sense ofimpact, influence, and power, and what canI do to increase it?4 To what extent do I have a sense ofcompetence and confidence to execute mywork, and what can I do to increase it?n To what extent do I have a sense ofself-determinat ion and choice, and what canI do to increase it?These questions imply that before wecan create an environment through whichothers can be empowered, we must empow-er ourselves. We must lead by example andbegin by changing ourselves, because lead-ers who transform themselves trust them-

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selves. Empowered people are empoweringpeople.All of us have observed senior executiveswho are insecure and unempowered. Thepeople around them continually struggle. Inthe end, these people cannot create environ-ments where others are willing to risk em-powering themselves.

CONCLUSIONBoth the mechanistic and the organic per-spec tives on empowerment provide a partialand incomplete picture of the empowermentjourney. Each provides a different lens or in-terpretation of the process. Most of the pop-ular business press is embedded in the moremechanistic perspective, which assumes thatempowerment is a set of managerial prac-tices for cascading power down to lower lev-els of the organization. Yet, the mechanisticperspective is incomplete by itself.We must seek to counter this imbalance,in the literature and in our organizations, by

more deeply developing the organic per-spective. This second perspective embodiespersonal risk, trust, and initiative.Yet, by itself, the organic perspective toois incomplete. The risk, trust, and initiativeso vital to the organic model are unrealisticunless managers choose to model empower-ment by asking themselves the hard ques-tions outlined above. It is only by juxtapos-ing these two pe rspect ives that we can beginto fully understand the journey of empow-erment.

This journey is difficult because no writ-ten guarantees are provided-no insurancepolicies or safety nets will save us if we fail.The possib ility of failure is a constant com-panion. Nevertheless, people w ill be willingto accept that possibility if they truly experi-ence a sense of empowerment in an environ-ment that values and supports risk , trust, andinitiative.

To order reprints, call 800-644-2464 (ref. numbe r8486). For photocopy permission, see page 2.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

For a more comprehensive look at the em-powerment process within the context ofdeep change, see Robert E. Quinn s recentlypublished book entitled Deep Change: Discov-ering the Leader WiUGn (Jossey-Bass, 1996). Thiswork examines both individual and organiza-tional processes that facilitate the organicperspective on empowerment.A variety of sources discuss the chal-lenges of the empowerment journey consis-tent with the more mechanistic perspectiveon empowerment. An article by David E.48 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAM ICS

Bowen and Edward E. Lawler III, The Em-powerment of Service Workers: What, Why,How, and When, Sloan Management Review(Spring 1992), emphasizes the key roles of in-formation, rewards, knowledge, and powerin the empowerment process. They expandon these notions in a second artic le in theSloan Management Review (Fall 1995) entitledEmpowering Service Workers. W.A. Ran-dolph, Navigating the Journey to Empower-ment, Organizational Dynamics (Spring 1995),describes the critica l managerial practices


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focused on information, structure , and teamsfor facilita ting the empowerment process. Fi-nally, R.C. Ford and M.D. Fottler providemore specif ic ideas on how to implement em-powerment in their article entitled Em pow-erment: A Matter of Degree, The Acudemy ofMunagement Executive (August 1995). A variety of sources also examine someof the challenges of the empowerment jour-ney consistent with the organic perspective.J. Conger and R. Kanungo emphasize theimportance of self-efficacy in the experienceof empowerment in their article entitledThe Empowerment Process: IntegratingTheory and Practice in the Academy of Man-agement Review (1988). K. Thomas and B.Velthouse provide a multidimensional defi-nition of empowerment that includes mean-ing, competence, choice, and impact in theirarticle Cognitive Elements of Empower-ment in the Academy of Management Review(1990). G.M. Spreitzer provides an instru-

ment for measuring psycholog ical empow-erment multidimensionally and examinesthe antecedents and consequences of em-powerment in the workplace in Psycholog-ical Empowerment in the Workplace: Defi-nition, Dimensions, and Validation,published in the Academy of ManagementJournal (October 1995). More discussion ofthe cyc le of empowerment and the LEADprogram can be found in R.E. Quinn, N.B.Sendelbach, and G.M. Spreitzer, Educationand Empowerment: A TransformationalModel of Managerial Sk ills Development,in J. Bigelow (Ed.), Managevial Ski lls: Explo-rations in Transfevving Practical Knowledge(Sage Publications, 1991).

Finally, Gretchen M. Spreitzer providesadditional discussion of the four sets of leversfor psycholog ical empowerment in her recentarticle entitled Socia l Structural Levers to In-dividual Empowerment in the Workplace,Academy of Munagement Journal (Apr il 1996).

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