These tips were published by Entrepreneur.com.
Why would you want to have autonomous workers with a lot of authority?
The main reason why you should want to have independently thinking and working subordinates is their mental health and productivity. Employees are rarely happy if they are subjected to micromanagement. In order for them to be efficient and productive, able to come up with new ideas and learn new skills, your subordinates need to know that they are empowered enough to apply those skills in the first place. If you do not give workers sufficient freedom, they will be dissatisfied, frustrated and often unproductive.
Another benefit of empowerment is increased diversity of opinions within the team. If workers have no power or say and are not free to express their opinions, you are killing the potential of your team. The more the merrier, but only if people are allowed to speak their mind and make their views known. With motivated and independent employees offering a variety of opinions, your team will be much more flexible.
How to practise empowerment with your subordinates
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Give employees the opportunity to work independently. Do not stand behind their backs all the time and do not control their every move. Let them work independently - and yes, sometimes let them do things differently from you.
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Get feedback from subordinates. In order to give workers freedom and authority, you must first know what kind of rights and authority they actually need and want. The only way to find this out is by maintaining an active dialogue with your subordinates and getting feedback from them.
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Delegate work to subordinates. Do not keep all the work to yourself and do not delegate to your employees only routine work that you think no one can mess up. Put subordinates in charge of increasingly complex projects and monitor how they handle the tasks.
- Let subordinates make mistakes. If you want to give someone more freedom at work, you have to accept up front that they will make mistakes. Of course, try to eliminate those mistakes which are critical or fatal to your team's results, but tolerate minor errors and show subordinates how they can learn from them.
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