How to Effectively Empower Team Members

There are certain obvious strategies for empowering a team, including giving members a voice in decision making, or giving them some authority and opportunities to lead. Here are some additional strategies for empowering team members based on leadership research.

Show confidence in followers’ abilities and hold high expectations for success. Based on the well-known Pygmalion Effect, leaders who demonstrate confidence in their followers, and have a “you can do it!” attitude, will increase followers’ sense of self-efficacy and positively impact their performance.

Allow workers some autonomy in performing their jobs. Giving workers control over how and when they perform different aspects of their jobs can be motivating, and can lead to creative work strategies. The COVID-19 lockdown, with many workers at home (and the steady, or even increased, productivity they demonstrated) showed that autonomy can indeed lead to high levels of performance—not always, but often.

Set inspirational and meaningful goals. Setting goals that both leaders and followers can agree on, and goals that are important and inspiring, is motivating and empowering to team members.

Use your own power and authority in a wise and positive manner. Minimize the use of coercive power, and display the kind of leadership that team members respect, so they follow you not because you are the person in charge, but because they want to work with you toward shared goals.

Here are 3 additional, more specific ways to empower team members:

1. Allow Them to Question “Rules.” Employees should feel secure enough to question a “standard operating procedure” if they believe it is inappropriate in a certain circumstance, or if they think they have a better way to do things. This doesn’t imply that anything goes; instead, leaders should encourage employees to speak up when they think that a particular rule is outdated, or when it doesn’t apply to a specific situation.

2. Allow Them to Make It Right. Particularly in customer service, employees should feel empowered enough to “go that extra mile” to satisfy clients/customers. In a restaurant, servers should be encouraged to comp a customer for an unsatisfactory dish, or a retail employee should be able to offer a discount to make it right. Of course, a manager should monitor the situation because abuses can occur.

3. Allow Employees to “Fail and Learn.” We learn best from the mistakes we make, and figuring out how to correct them. A wise manager provides leeway for employees to experiment or try new things on the job. When something doesn’t work, the employee should be encouraged to analyze the situation and strive to continuously improve workplace procedures.

Empowered workers are more motivated, satisfied, and creative— and more likely to stay with an organization.