In last week’s blog, we discussed the importance of developing yourself as a leader and also developing others and more specifically using the the CANI model (Constant And Never-Ending Improvement). This week we’ll talk about how LEADERS EMPOWER their organization to lead.
LEADERS often make the mistake of managing their organisations and sometimes often controlling them which in the process disempowers the team, and as a result the morality is low, the energy is low, performance and productivity is low.
I remember being guilty of this in the past, when I was leading two organizations, one in Cyprus and one in the United Kingdom. I would fly to Cyprus and my business there would flourish, sales would increase and momentum would rise. However, my U.K. organisation’s performance and sales would drop. Then I would fly back to the U.K, the business increased there and then my Cyprus organization would slow down.
That was when I started to realize that, instead of developing leaders, I was developing followers. As a result my organization was waiting for me to come back and step up because they felt like they did not have enough within them in order to step up and lead.
So what are some keys in empowering an organization?
• Instil Belief: It is your job as a leader to instil belief in your team. Make them see and believe that they could progress and and also lead an organization.
• Give Them Responsibilities and Give Up Control- You should delegate more tasks to the team in order for them to experience hands on training and more importantly give up control and let them use their own initiative.
• Be a cheerleader: Teach them the things that you want to see in the organization, lift them up, show them that they can also do the things that you do.
• Completion is better than perfection: I used to be guilty of this- needed to get everything ‘right’. As a result everything needed to go through my hands and consequently i found myself working 14-16 hours per day! So I decided to shift my focus on completing tasks rather than perfecting them More specifically with my team, I avoided focusing on their mistakes but instead focused on the things they have done right and on their strengths.
According to Voltaire, “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility.” Now is the time to truly LEAD. As a LEADER its our responsibility to empower our organisation and our people and once that is mastered you’ll have a solid team, with a high morale and with leaders on the rise; and when you have leadership on the rise you have a company on the rise. A team of EMPOWERED LEADERS all walking in the same direction is SOLID and DIFFICULT to beat.
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