Achieving Carbon Net Zero by 2050 will not be the responsibility of a select few – it will take a collective effort that engages the power of all of us. Leaders need to know HOW to do this.
Many business leaders say they want an empowered workforce. They believe this will lead to better engagement, higher levels of well-being and increased productivity across their employees. However, there is a paradox in empowerment – I do not believe it is possible to empower people. Rather, people have to choose to be empowered.
In this short article I will explain how I have come to this conclusion and offer a way where leaders can use simple, easily trainable skills to create an empowered population.
“Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others.”
John Maxwell
Empowerment is about choice. And it is not the choice of the leader to decide that their people will be empowered. It is the choice made by the people on whether they feel that they can be and therefore will be empowered. The leader has a significant role to play in setting the environment where the people feel safe, capable and able to make their fullest contribution. Make no mistake, being empowered is a feeling…not an instruction.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Maya Angelou
Many leaders may actually fear a truly empowered community or workforce. Their fear will be that they do not have control and that people will go off in different directions. If this is the case, then the leader has the wrong idea. She needs to do some work on making sure that the mission has been communicated clearly and that everybody involved has bought into that mission. There may well be times when people need to be told what to do with high levels of control. For instance, if the building is on fire do you not need empowered people…you need people to follow instructions , procedures, and evacuate the building quickly and calmly. Therefore, it is important to be exquisite in articulating the context.
People turn up generally wanting to feel valued and wanting to make a significant contribution. So the work of the leader is to create a dialogue where what the people can contribute is understood and agreed, so that the people can contribute to the mission.
In his paper “Problems, problems, problems: The social construction of ‘leadership'[1]” Professor Keith Grint highlights how simple tasks and problems do not necessarily require high levels of engagement. Command and control may be appropriate in a crisis. However, when the situation is complex and there are multiple stakeholders involved then the leader’s role is to ask questions to ascertain the optimum way forward. We can all agree that tackling climate change and achieving Carbon Net Zero is complex. Therefore, it is vital that future leaders understand and are equipped to create an environment where people can be empowered.
People turn up generally wanting to feel valued and wanting to make a significant contribution. So the work of the leader is to create a dialogue where what the people can contribute is understood and agreed, so that the people can contribute to the mission. Grint points out that leadership is about asking questions. This, for me, is where coaching skills become apparent as a vital tool in the leader’s skill set in creating an empowered community or workplace. You don’t have to be a coach to be a leader; but great leaders are adept at using coaching skills. To keep things simple, I use three core coaching elements from the ICF’s core competences to equip leaders to achieve empowerment:
Contracting (Establishing the Coaching Agreement) – this is being really clear about the ‘deal’. This is where the leader can describe the environment, lay out what the task is, what the expectations and goals are, and explore if the people want to participate. Co-creating the deal will improve engagement and accountability. This is where the leader can invite the people to be empowered:
- “what we’re trying to achieve here is…
- …how do you want to be involved?”
Active listening – to be able to ask powerful questions you need to know where your people’s minds are at. You need to be able to listen carefully – and there is a difference between hearing and listening. Do you know what your people are thinking? Do you know what your people are feeling?
“Focus completely on what the individual is saying and is not saying, understanding the meaning of what is said in the context of the individual’s desires, and supporting individual’s self-expression.”
(ICF core competency No. 5)
Powerful questions – this is where the contracting and the active listening can come together to clearly establish the way forward and ascertain what the commitment from the people will be. “Do you want to be part of this project?” “What do you want to contribute towards it?” “What do you want from me?” “How will we know progress is being made?” When questions like these are answered the leader will know whether the people are empowered and ready to contribute, or whether they are just wanting to follow orders.
Most people want to make a contribution. Most people get up in the morning wanting to do a good job. People need purpose and meaning, and we all have the potential to be brilliant. So although I believe that leaders cannot empower their people, I do believe that people can be empowered. And it is essential that leaders know how to do this, after all: “Disempowerment is at the heart of poor health – physical, mental and emotional” (Johann Hari[2]). Empowered people, on the other hand, will change the world.
Richard Cartlidge is the architect of the Future Leaders Programme – an initiative that aims to establish the next generation of leaders who will need to realise Net Carbon Zero by 2050. He is also a PCC with the ICF and is Director of Performance Solutions Consulting Ltd., a leadership development practice that specialises in coaching, team development and delivering leadership programmes from the United Kingdom to clients around the world.
[1] Grint K. (2005) “Problems, problems, problems: The social construction of ‘leadership’” Sage Human Relations 2005 58: 1467
[2] Hari J (2018) “Lost Connections” Bloomsbury ISBN: 978-1-4088-7872-9
