“You don’t have to live in a castle to be labeled as a king or queen.”

from Informing, Inspiring, and Motivating by Katrina Simpson

(Link to video) 

I am sure you have checked Wikipedia: Empowerment is a set of measures designed to increase the degree of autonomy and self-determination in people and in communities in order to enable them to represent their interests in a responsible and self-determined way, acting on their own authority.

In a work setting, I would define it as: 

Empowerment allows a team of people to achieve defined goals without explicit leadership intervention as each individual operates autonomously within their set of skills and responsibilities.

The best example I can think of is to physically remove yourself as a leader from the team: Travel, work from home, take a day off, … and leave behind an explicit statement of trust (e.g., “you make the decision and communicate it”). This creates a favorable situation and symbolizes empowerment as you are not looming next door.

However, empowerment is not an objectively measurable action like physically removing yourself. It is the perception of the team, their feeling of being empowered that matters. Employees are more likely to trust leaders whom they perceive as more empowering. They have greater faith and are more likely to put in effort without feeling that they are being exploited.

HBR published a paper on the topic of what works and what doesn’t when it comes to empowerment. Some of their findings seem intuitive, others not so much. The effect that leaders who are perceived as empowering have on their own ability to lead is that they are …

• more likely to be trusted,

• have a more positive impact on less experienced employees,

• and are more effective in influencing creativity and informal behaviors: “… this type of leadership seems to encourage employees to generate novel ideas and think of new ways of doing things, and to help others in the workplace, volunteer for extra assignments, and be willing to support their organization outside of an official capacity.”

On the other hand, …

• feeling empowered does not always boost routine task performance, and

• may be seen as evidence that the leader cannot lead and is trying to avoid making difficult decisions.

So how does that translate to a sales team?

If you have an inside sales team that is “dialing for dollars,” using call center software and a highly scripted and measured approach, empowerment may not have any positive impact. Taking away some of the structure based on best practices that you have created may actually reduce the results.

Laney Pilpel takes a slightly different approach when she writes: “When (inside) reps have to make decisions on their own like coming up with ideas for a list, scripting, creating their own reports, creating ways to be more efficient in your CRM system, etc., they start understanding how they play into the whole picture of helping the organization. They start to understand for themselves what it means to be more efficient by developing systems and processes on their own, and eventually become more knowledgeable by actively doing instead of waiting for something to be done for them.”

How about an A/B test of both approaches among your inside sales team?

 

For field sales reps, especially those involved in more complex, strategic, high-value sales, empowerment is often built into the job description: e.g. “manage a territory,” “with minimal supervision.” As a leader, your task is to create and communicate the environment that lives up to the description and enables a rep to deliver the best results. That includes:

• Set achievable, aligned targets

• Set guardrails based on strong ethical and moral values

• Maintain stability, consistency, and transparency

• Minimize administrative tasks

• Offer support

 

Empowerment is not a magic silver bullet, rather something to be applied with thought and intent. 

 

Contact us if you would like to find out how interim or fractional sales leadership may help your business.

 

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HBR – When Empowering Employees Works, and When It Doesn’t

Laney Pilpel – How Empowerment Can Rejuvenate Your Inside Sales Organization

John Carter - Empowering Teams Through Metrics at Apple

Photo by Anne Gosewehr