Empowering Leaders

• You can empower employees to make decisions - this gives them responsibility and defines their role - this is managerial responsibility.
• Leadership is not about decision making responsibility.
• You cannot, strictly speaking, empower leaders.
• Leaders are people who take their own initiative, regardless of authority.
• Empowerment means giving people the authority to decide. Leadership is promoting new ideas, it is not about making decisions. That is a managerial action.
• This does not mean doing whatever they want, but rather striving to influence the organization to change direction.
• You can encourage leaders so they have more confidence to challenge the status quo, but that is not empowerment as such.
• Developing leaders is more about creating a culture where senior executives are receptive to challenge from all quarters.
• Yes, this does entail giving them a sort of permission, but permission to challenge the status quo is not the same as being given specific authority, hence it is not empowerment.
• True leaders already have power - the power of ideas and personal confidence to stand up and be counted.
• You cannot give such people this sort of power.
• Giving them power or formal authority provides them with managerial authority. Formal authority does not make someone a leader.