Theme 1: A leader must create followers to succeed in accomplishing the vision of the organization. Empowerment is the key to creating followers in an organization. Empowerment is about letting others make decisions and share the workload.
Read:
• Building and Sustaining Relationships
• How to Inspire Your Employees to Make Them More Engaged
• Building trust in the workplace and team
• Transformational Leadership
• Why Should Anyone Be Led By You?
• 5 Myths of Leadership
• The 11 Leadership Secrets You've Never Heard About
• What Followers Want from Leaders
• The Allure of Toxic Leaders: Why Followers Rarely Escape Their Clutches
Theme 2: A leader has to know the difference between leading through influence and leading with authority.
Influence vs. Authority?
• Can Leaders Influence Without Authority
• Leadership Power and Influence
• Creating engaged employees
Creating Followers
Theme One is simply how do you empower people? The student should differentiate motivation from empowerment. It might also be useful to go back to week one and review the idea that motivating followers is a better tool for the manager instead of the leader because of its specific nature and the intrinsic or extrinsic need of the follower. Empowerment is the tool of choice for the leader primarily because it must be insured through the organizational structure and culture. The leader is creating structural empowerment and building trust to keep the vision and future clear for forward motion.
Learning Activity
Answer the following questions and support your answers from the weekly reading:
If a leader's job is to develop the future of the organization how does motivation and empowerment fit in to this role? Be sure to explain the difference between the two ideas and ways that both motivation and empowerment should be used in the job the leader does.
Why is it important for the leader to empower? Why can't the manager do the job? OR do they both do the job?
What is meant by structural empowerment? Why is it important to the leader?