Leadership

In business, we often hear people talk about "empowerment."  The idea is simple: as a leader, you have given power and discretion to your followers to make decisions on their own.  Rather than becoming a bottleneck, an empowering leader allows the gifts and talents of his or her team to flow throughout the organization. How can you tell when empowerment is happening?  One symptom that empowerment is a value and not just a buzzword is this: not all the best ideas belong to the leader.  This not only relieves the leader of having to be an idea factory, it also allows the team to grow and expand. The opposite of empowerment is control.  Are there things that a leader must control?  Absolutely.  But not everything. Where do the best ideas in your organization come from?

I'm a big Southwest Airlines fan ... good peanuts, bags fly free, and a healthy sense of humor.  Southwest recently celebrated their 40th anniversary of being in business.  Spirit magazine published this great article, "40 Lessons to Learn from Southwest."

"If you want employees to take a vested interest in the bigger picture, treat them like stakeholders. When you create an environment in which “jobs” are regarded more like “investments,” employees will show up with passion, productivity, and focus, making your company more profitable." Paul Spiegelman writing in INC. magazine.

"The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously." -- Hubert Humphrey, 38th U.S. vice president

In their book, "The Truth About Leadership," authors Jim Kouzes and Barry Pozner write about leadership agility.  They define leadership agility as the ability to learn and adapt on the fly.  Leaders who lack agility are rigid, locked-in to methods that may not work any more.  Or they may hold values that are detrimental rather than helpful. As you lead, you will encounter challenges, difficulties, and setbacks.  Agile leaders are learners as well.  They learn from what they experiences, in order to improve the next time. Do you have leadership agility?