9 Ways to Empower Your People 

1. Actively Listen

When you are actively listening, you truly understand what your people are saying in conversations and meetings instead of only hearing what you want to hear.

2. Set Boundaries

Generous boundaries that is. It’s not about restricting your employees, but giving them boundaries in which they can make their own decisions. By doing this, you are giving them the freedom to act without fear of punishment.

3. Be Their Cheerleader

Learn what each person does best and support and encourage them in that area. Also, find ways for your team to support each other, bring them together and support them all.

4. Be Forgiving

Mistakes are part of growth and innovation. If your team isn’t making them, you probably aren’t growing. Learn to be forgiving and accepting of mistakes so that your team feels comfortable trying new initiatives.

5. Praise Effort

You cannot only be focused on success and talent, you have to praise effort as well. Someone may have put in a lot of effort on a project, but for one reason or another, it may not have succeeded. That’s not to say the time wasn’t well spent. There are valuable lessons to be learned during that journey. Praise the effort and let your people know you see the value in their work.

6. Allow Growth

An important benefit people are looking for within their jobs is opportunity for growth. By providing growth paths for your people you are showing them that you are investing in their career, making them likelier to stay with your company.

7. Talk Less

Instead of constantly telling employees how to do something, talk less and observe more. In doing so, you begin to actually understand what is happening within the company, which allows you to ask meaningful questions that help the team reach the most beneficial solution.

8. Earn Trust

It’s easy to be supportive of your people in good times, but you need to be there for them in bad times too. Cutting the bottom 10% of your workforce each year is not okay. Do not hire people unless you are willing to support them through thick and thin. Your employee’s depend on their job to provide for themselves and their families, they need to have faith and trust in you that they will not lose that job when times get tough.

9. Check Your Ego At The Door

You don’t always have to be the smartest or have the best ideas. Listen to your people and be open to their ideas. Be humble enough to admit that they may know more or have better suggestions.

When you empower your people, you enhance the culture, which in turn, elevates your organization to new heights.

From January 23, 2019