In Part 2 of this blog, we looked at how managers acquired empowerment skills in the past and how the modern work environment makes such skills all the more necessary but harder to acquire.  In Part 3 we look at how different generations handle the new work environment and its impact on the practice of empowering others to get things done. 

Many Baby-boomers react to redundancy with a sense of anger towards management; they feel let down by an employer that did not return the loyalty that they have shown; many may also experience a sense of shame despite their performance having had no bearing on management’s decision to dismiss them.

Gen Y, in contrast, have lived in this world of job insecurity for the whole of their working lives.  They feel under less obligation to show loyalty to their current employer because their employer shows less loyalty to them.   Their strategy to counter the ever present threat of redundancy is to use their Technical Knowledge and self management skills to climb the management ladder as rapidly as possible reasoning that, as they progress, their employability credentials will be enhanced when they seek another job.  Unless the job in question is at the very highest levels of management, the selection criteria will be heavily weighted towards the first two Skill sets.

Job insecurity and Gen Y’s reaction to it has further ramifications.  Looking after one’s vested interest takes priority over that of others.  People stay in the same job for much shorter periods of time.  People operate under much greater time pressures.  These three consequences militate against managers exercising empowerment skills.  It takes time that they do not have; it’s not worth it because they won’t be around to reap the rewards of their efforts and even if they were motivated to exercise them, it will do little to enhance their employability for their next career move.

That leaves Gen X.  Such is the pace of change in technical knowledge, many Gen X managers often feel threatened by their more technically advanced Gen Y reports.  When this happens, some managers will seek to neutralise this advantage by withholding information, by deliberately excluding their reports from the planning process and generally keeping them at arms length – in essence not taking those actions that have previously been identified as the foundation steps of empowerment.  There is a lot of truth in the axiom that people join companies and leave managers.

There is one further factor that militates against the managerial deployment of empowerment skills.  Let me take a hypothetical example.  It concerns a hospital nurse.  She has her degree and is recognised as being highly competent from a technical standpoint.  She’s keen and enthusiastic and works hard with a sense of self discipline.  Her relationships with her patients leave something to be desired  – her degree course focused almost exclusively on “technical knowledge”.  Neither its practical application nor soft nurse/patient interpersonal skills featured – the general attitude was that these could be learned on the job through experience.  Her manager is pleasant enough but she has only recently joined the hospital staff.  She doesn’t seem to be adequately informed by her boss on the overall picture except that money is very tight.  She appears stressed and the basic message to her staff may be summarised as “heads down, bums up”.  After 15 months in the job, she takes maternity leave and our nurse is promoted to replace her.  Suddenly, our newly promoted manager needs to exercise a whole new skill set for which she has been inadequately prepared.  Even if she recognises this, she doesn’t take steps to acquire these skills for two reasons.  Her predecessor didn’t display them so she has no example to follow and she feels much more comfortable exercising her technical knowledge.

This scenario is played out again and again where people are promoted because of their technical competence when what really matters in their new managerial position is their ability to empower their staff.  If this sequence repeats itself often enough, managerial role models become increasingly hard to find.  Management mediocrity becomes the norm.

Of course, there are natural leaders.  People who are very competent technically, have excellent self-management skills and who seem to know instinctively how to empower others.  But such people are rare – and becoming rarer.  You may be fortunate to have worked for one but the need for such managers is too great for any economy to rely on those few found in the wild.  We need to domesticate the breed and improve the gene pool with the ultimate goal of breeding managers with all three skill sets who will inspire those whom they manage to emulate their example.

Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, the best selling authors of “The Leadership Challenge” summarised the findings of their extensive research on the subject as follows:

“Managers who focus on themselves and are insensitive to others fail, because there is a limit to what they can do by themselves.  Those leaders who succeed realise that little can be accomplished if people don’t feel strong and capable.  In fact, by using their own power in the service of others rather than in the service of self, successful leaders transform their constituents into leaders themselves – and wind up with extraordinary results”.

If the research is so compelling, why don’t more managers practice the skill of empowering those whom they manage?  It can’t be because the skills are hard to learn.  Indeed, the late James Strong, industry captain and patron of the arts, commented that “the key to leadership is simple common sense – treat people with respect and they will respond, no matter what background they’re from.  It’s worth 5000 textbooks on management, and the tragedy is it’s just plain common sense”.

Perhaps Voltaire had the answer when he observed that “common sense is not so common”.

Guest Author

Graham Haines is principal consultant of Plans To Reality, a consulting practice that specialises in the planning and execution of organisational strategies. He is both a Certified Management Consultant and a Certified Practicing Marketer. His book, “Execution to Die For – The Manager’s Guide To Making It Happen” identifies why things don’t happen the way the planners intended and demonstrates how to make sure they do.  Upwards of forty blogs on a variety of management and marketing topics can be found at www.planstoreality.wordpress.com.