Microsoft’s mission is stated the following way:
Our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
This mission statement is energizing to me because it aligns well with my values. I want to empower others to be the absolute best they can be. Empowerment is not easy. It requires intentional action and space to allow individuals to take action themselves and to learn and grow.
I have learned there are a few key components to empowering others. Let me illustrate these components with two short stories.
Two years ago, I ran into a challenge with the program I am responsible for at work. I had not experienced this challenge before, but I knew my manager Michael Dent had faced something similar. I asked for help, really I was looking for answers. He gave me guidance and then asked – what do you feel is right? I shared my thinking and we moved forward with what I had thought. I felt empowered.
Last week, my wife and I asked my 5-year-old daughter to help clean up and organize the craft supplies. For those of you who are parents of young children, you know how crazy these supplies can get. The challenge for her was to organize the markers into one bin, the crayons into another, colored pencils into a third, and finally the miscellaneous supplies into a fourth. My daughter was not sure what bins to use so I showed her several bins and said something to the effect of – you know your supplies better than I do, put these things in the four bins and let me know if you need help. She asked for help a time or two and I mostly deflected back to her judgement. What normally would have been a battle to get this chore completed turned out to be something she was proud of and excited about. She felt empowered.
Here are the components of empowerment that can be seen in these two stories.
Component 1:
There must be a challenge. I was facing a challenge on what to do about my program and my daughter did not know how she was going to address all the chaos.
Component 2:
There is an invitation to exercise agency. My manager asked the question “what do you feel is right?” and then gave me the freedom to take action. I helped my daughter when she did not know which bins she could use to collect the various supplies. After I showed her the bins, I let her decide how she would organize the supplies.
Component 3:
Trust is present in the system. My manager trusted my instincts and trusted me to act according to what was right for the program and the leaders I serve. My encouragement to my daughter was “I know you can do this” and she felt I trusted her with the important task of organizing the craft supplies.
These three components constitute empowerment.
Examine a time in your life when you felt empowered. What was your challenge? Was there space for you to exercise agency? Were you trusted?
To develop a greater capacity to empower, pick an individual that is facing a challenge (hint this will be any human being) and experiment with the remaining two components. Ask yourself questions like.
- How can I help this person take action and ownership of the solution?
- Am I doing something for this person that they can do for themselves?
- Does this person feel trusted to move forward?
- What action can I take to increase the level of trust this person feels?
Write down what you are learning – your capacity to empower will increase over time.
