The Importance Of Empowerment In The Workplace

As the new leader of the quality office attempting to gain commitment of empowerment from the management team of a physician practice, I would first define empowerment, the roles of leadership and the benefits of this approach. Empowerment is not about handing over the organization to the employees but going beyond asking them for ideas therefore it is about helping employees help themselves thereby creating an environment that works smarter not harder, promotes creative independent thinking, innovative, competitive and fosters employees who own their duties by increasing productivity and advanced competitiveness (Davis & Goetsch, 2010). Empowerment helps leaders build working relationships with employees and creates an environment for total

Thereby, management would have to be supportive, reinforce tangible ideas while acting as a role model, mentor and trainer to help the employees (Davis &n Goetsch, 2010). Empowerment will allow the managers to be involved but not the only ones making every decision. In addition, it’s about empowering employees to make changes that will enhance the quality thus leading to total quality management (Reza, Gholamreza, Hasan Aarei &Nasrin, 2010). Furthermore, if more managers delegate more responsibility to the employees they will see it as a sign of appreciation and trust in their performance which will boost their self-esteem and motivation to perform while employee-supervisor relationship will become positive along with job satisfaction thereby leading to increased productivity (Gomez & Rosen, 2001). I would then ask the managers to envision a day where employees did not ask the managers to solve every issue/problem but developed solutions and found better ways of performing their duties. In addition, I would ask the mangers how many times daily were they requested by employees to fix a problem that was within an employee’s job duties and how would they be more effective leaders if employees were committed to the company

I would remind managers and leaders that quality, efficiency and safety of the clinic will increase as knowledge is shared, support and resources are provided to staff and as the staff recognizes leadership is authentic, open and truthful by recognizing their voice and value in decision making the result will be a positive work environment with increased engagement and ownership of the duties (Wong & Laschinger, 2013). Education provided to management would include book, video and hands on simulations that reflect types of situations and decision they could encounter (Davis & Goetsch, 2010). However for empowerment to become part of the fabric of the healthcare clinic, leadership will have to demonstrate commitment and engage employees. Leaders will have to learn thru training and education to let go of insecurities, ego and some personality characteristics that are barriers to employee empowerment or leave the clinic and find other employment (Davis & Goetsch, 2010). I would enforce a strategic and review process that required leadership to report on their efforts