Empower your employees to deliver excellence

Ensuring your employees have the tools they need to be successful is critical. But empowering them to make decisions that could affect your business is just as important, if not more so. Guaranteeing that your employees have a voice will lead to a more cohesive, results-oriented team that is constantly pushing toward a common goal. If you’re looking for ways to empower your employees, here are some tips that will jump-start your team:

1. Listen to your employees. You should expect your employees to have a depth of understanding of their respective roles in the organization to a degree you never will. While you’re reading this, your employees are thinking of ways to perform their job more efficiently and effectively. Your employees have your next game-changing idea—but they have to know you want to hear about it.

2. Go to work for your employees. While your employees may formally report to you, it’s important that you consistently demonstrate you are working for them, too. One important way to do this is to be sure their good ideas are implemented and that proper credit is given where it is due.

3. Don’t micromanage your team. Trust and support their decision-making even when it may not be the decision you would have made. Constant second-guessing will erode the relationship and will likely dry up your greatest resource for improving the organization.

4. Failure isn’t necessarily failure. Allowing your employees to fail occasionally will only strengthen their decision-making ability and perhaps, more importantly, allow you an essential opportunity to coach and improve your—and their—skill sets.

Tim KryszakExecutive vice-president of operationsProxibidOmaha

VOCABULARY

empower: otorgar poder

jump-start: hacer arrancar

tip: recomendación

decision-making: toma de decisiones

second-guessing: tratar de cambiar

erode: corroer

dry-up: agotarse