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If you don’t feel the empowerment, don’t do it!

I have been giving classes here in Houston with the topic “effective communication, conflict management and how to solve difficult situations in teams”, and I loved the way the participants were responding to the content, they were amazed by the fact that such easy tools could change the way they feel about approaching others in critical situations achieving good results. So in the end: if you want different results, learn and use a different approach, or at least try it.

I realized once again working with different cultures, that the common goal is happiness and satisfaction at work, with the premise that we need to be happy first if we want others to be happy and to get engaged in our team.

Good leadership is an ongoing process, it is about effective communication, empathy, emotional intelligence, and empowerment. Leadership is about creating followers, and not forcing them to follow you.

Where does happiness at work comes from? I don’t want to write a blog about happiness and satisfaction at work, there are a lot of studies and investigations about this topic, but I want to stress out a message that is, according to my experience, the right attitude for solving conflict as a leader: Feel the empowerment!

Leadership empowerment is the feeling you have (or don’t have) you are able and you have the “right” for leading, and it works like the self fulfilling prophecy in a way that it gives you the right attitude for acting with responsibility and humility.

Studies say, if you don’t have the desire to lead, you cannot be a good leader. Here it is: feel the desire and wish to lead, feel the empowerment they give to you to lead, and work on it every day in order to create great teams and great environment at work.

Empowerment is not about the contract or the position, is about attitude, mind-set and self-confidence. I am not talking about power abuse or of letting them feel you are the boss, no way! I am talking about the heart of the fulfilling of a position, of the feeling you deserve it and you can make it.

When I ask in my leadership training “Do you feel the empowerment?” I notice every time that the participants think over it. The question makes them think and reflect about the relationship they have with they report (up) but it has not really to do with it.

Empowerment is a personal attitude that we create and develop through experiences, love for our work and self-confidence. Leadership empowerment creates the attitude for leading and managing people, for doing the job without hesitation and or taking over responsibilities.

If you feel you can make it, then you can make it. It doesn’t mean you are not going to make mistakes, but it means you are going to learn from them without thinking you failure.

Develop your feeling for empowerment:

• Work on positive atmosphere at work.
• Talk with them and not TO them.
• Be a friend, but don’t forget you are the leader.
• Give recognition, not only through incentives and a free meal, but communicating with them.
• Love your job and show that you love it through commitment to them.
• Lead by example, do what you say you and they should do.
• Do you feel the desire to lead? If not, leave it.

If you feel the empowerment they will feel it, too.