Leaders Empower People To Make Decisions – Managers Tell Them What To Do
There are many differences between managers and leaders, although most people do not understand them. The truth is that most people that are offered a management position in companies end up being chosen because they were really good at the job they did before the promotion. This is the normal way in which many business owners want to build strong loyalty but it does not mean that the person that is chosen will be a true leader in the organization.
German Trujillo Manrique highlights that in a business you need to have both leaders and managers. A person can definitely be both but this rarely happens. Leaders actually empower staff members and they help them get the skills and knowledge needed to make their own choices that would benefit the organization. The managers gather information and tell people what to do. Unfortunately, the regular management approach can easily lead to having a team that is not effective and that never has initiative.
Let People Solve Problems
One of the easiest ways to empower staff members is to let them solve the problems that appear. You can easily do this if you have a good monitoring system in place. Basically, in the event that you know everything that happens inside an organization, you can identify situations in which fast response is not really needed. This is when you can let employees come up with solutions. Encourage them and make sure you appreciate all the work that is done. If possible, try to implement a rewards system that covers problem-solving.
Face-To-Face Meetings
Because of the fact that technology evolved and nowadays we have access to so many communication channels we can use, so many managers do not even personally interact with employees. This can be a huge mistake, especially if you are interested in promoting decision-taking.
Arrange face-to-face meetings with staff members or smaller team leaders. This is where you can talk about the current state of projects and encourage feedback. Remember that it is not just upper management that should offer feedback in an organization. It is also the team members that have to talk. This rarely happens with managers that are not interested in feedback. If feedback is not allowed and you do not take into account what staff members tell you, employees simply stop talking.
Always Encourage Conversations
A big reason why people do not offer feedback and they do not talk with team leaders or managers is that they think their input is not important. Make sure that you often talk about this so you clearly highlight that this is not the case. Conversations within an organization need to be encouraged. You do this by asking questions and actually asking for feedback and ideas.
Modern business is all about having functional teams that work together and that constantly increase operation efficiency. When you rely on the old model of having a person in charge that tells everyone what to do, productivity is much lower than what it could be.
