According to one recent study, only 27% of employees say their company leadership encourages and recognizes suggestions for positive change or improvement. Empowering employees is a great idea, but it’s often difficult for management to give up control.
These three statements can help determine if you’re really ready to practice empowerment:
- When employees give me alternatives, I avoid telling them which one I want. Instead, I ask for their suggestions.
- I’m open to using ideas/practices from outside the company to improve our team’s performance.
- I encourage and recognize my employees’ suggestions for improvement.
Rate your responses from 5 (strongly agree) to 1 (strongly disagree). The closer your score is to 15, the more likely you are to embrace true employee empowerment. To understand how/where you can more effectively embrace empowerment, it is important to be completely honest with yourself.