How Good Leaders Disempower Their Employees… Intentionally or Not

  • By Dawna Kinnunen
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  • 15 Nov, 2018
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A productive workplace empowers employees to contribute to decision-making and boosts employee morale; however, even good leaders can fall victim to these bad habits that disempower their employees.

Walk into an office of any size and it can become evident pretty quickly what the workplace culture is like. Is it one where employees actively communicate with management and are involved in the decision-making process, or is it one in which management makes all the decisions and creates barriers to communication? Even a well-intentioned leader may feel the need to act in a particular way in order to establish a sense of authority over others.

Micromanaging employees, or an egotistical need to be in control, can give leaders a sense of unwarranted positional authority (Rockwell, 2016). The negative effect of the need to be in control, or emphasize one’s position of authority over others, disempowers employees “disenfranchising them, taking away their natural sense of power and responsibility, their curiosity, and their creativity” (Solomon, 2017). When employees are disempowered, they may feel frustrated, paranoid, anxious, and helpless. These negative feelings create a negative workplace culture, which will impact productivity and quality of work.

Here are some ways leaders disempower good employees:

  1. Excluding employees in making decisions—By making all the decisions by yourself may make you feel in control and powerful; however, keeping employees out of the decision-making process makes them feel like outsiders and undervalued.
  2. Minimizing or ignoring feedback—Even if you include employees in the decision-making process, failure to acknowledge their expertise and input will lead to frustration and cause employees to shut down.
  3. Isolating yourself—Leaders who don’t interact with their employees (e.g. stay at arm’s length, don’t shake hands, never walk around the office, keep the office door closed) create barriers to communication.
  4. Ridiculing or shaming employees—This is especially more dramatic if done in front of their subordinates. Leaders who use this strategy may feel that belittling others puts themselves higher on the scale of authority.
  5. Being indecisive—Changing your mind frequently wastes time, money, and leaves others confused. Leaders who don’t explain their rationale leave employees unable to follow or can’t stay caught up.

If you’re guilty of disempowering your coworkers, it’s not too late to make changes to create an open, productive work environment. Consider these suggestions:

  • Keep meetings focused on the issues that matter; encourage and accept input/feedback; create realistic options; and delegate final decisions to others. Being able to choose between options gives the feeling of being in control.
  • Have honest conversations and consider feedback before making decisions.
  • Be accessible. Get to know your employees individually, put their needs above yours, and keep open lines of communication.
  • Give constructive feedback in private. Be respectful by having difficult conversations behind closed doors.
  • Collaborate with employees then follow through with final decisions and tasks.

Above all, effective leaders that empower their employees are open and honest about their own management style. An effective leader can acknowledge his or her own faults and is ready to improve upon them; ultimately, this will lead to making changes in how they interact with their employees, respond to feedback, and involve employees in making decisions.

Resources:
Hyatt, M. (2017, August 7). 13 Ways to Make Your Employees Pull Their Hair Out. Retrieved from https://michaelhyatt.com/frustrated-employees/

Rockwell, D. (2016, June 13). Leadership Freak. 5 ways incompetent leaders dis-empower good people. Retrieved from https://leadershipfreak.blog/2016/06/13/5-ways-incompetent-leaders-dis-empower-good-people/

Solomon, M. (2017, April 6). Forbes. With no power comes no responsibility: How a broken corporate culture disempowers employees. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2017/04/06/how-your-corporate-culture-dis-empowers-employe...

Sharpening The Saw

By Dawna Kinnunen • 01 Sep, 2020

Just finished a 3 day John Maxwell virtual conference of learning and growing.  So blessed to be a part of this incredible team. 

Law #7 from Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “Sharpen the Saw” is such an important one to stay in the right “mindset”…regardless of our circumstances!  

Law#7 in this book says:
Seek continuous improvement and renewal professionally and personally.

Sharpen the Saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have--you.                                                                                                                         It means having a balanced program for self-renewal in the four areas of your life: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual.

Everyone of us in business has been challenged this season.  How WE manage it, how WE deal with it will predict our outcomes that follow. 

 It's just SO important that we continuosly invest in ourselves as leaders, develop ourselves and sharpen our saw.  Not only is it the best gift we can give our team, our families and those around us, it's the best gift we can give ourselves!

We need to change and grow in order to bring change and growth.  As leaders, if we are not where we want to be we need to first look within.   

Transformation always starts with the leader, and trickles down. 

The ONLY way to be a great leader is to first start with leading yourself!

What are you doing to Sharpen Your Saw? 

Sage advise from John Maxwell ... looking back to learn.

By Dawna Kinnunen • 05 Dec, 2019
Sharing this post from John Maxwell. A great exercise to take time to look back ... to learn

What will you remember about 2019?

As the last days of this year trickle by and your thoughts turn towards presents and parties and preparations for 2020, I wonder what your memories of this year will be.

What will spring to mind when you think back over the year’s-worth of days you’ve lived?

I ask because this is a reflective time for me, but also because it’s a reflective time for many people. We look back before we look ahead because reflection is the process that turns experience into insight. I’ve taught that principle for years, but I want to offer a qualifier for your consideration:

What you reflect on determines what you will learn.

I always guide my reflection process by my calendar; I look back on appointments I’ve kept, meetings I’ve held, talks I’ve given, and other time commitments I’ve made to help me invest my time wisely in the year that’s to come. It’s a process that works well for me, and I’ve recommended it to many over the years.

But if I were to only reflect on my calendar, then the only lessons I would learn would be about priorities and scheduling. While there’s nothing wrong with that, there’s also so much more that should be learned.

My calendar is only the starting point for me—I look beyond just where and how I spent my time, and I call to mind the people and purpose for which that time was spent. I focus on the real faces and causes that invited me to add value to them, and I reflect on whether I succeeded in that mission.

I’m not afraid to say that I’m not always as successful as I’d like to be, and I glean from those moments ways that I can continue to grow and improve. But I look at the successes too.

There’s just as much to learn from when we win, but people don’t often look there while reflecting. We tend to think that the only way we’ll really learn is by examining what didn’t work. My friend, nothing could be further from the truth.

We have as much—if not more—to learn from our successes, if we’ll spend the time looking at them.

One of my favorite stories about this idea comes from the John Maxwell Team. A few years ago, we’d just completed a Certification event in Orlando, and everyone raved about the quality and the excellence they experienced during our time together.

Mark Cole, my CEO, came across Paul Martinelli, President of the John Maxwell Team, and congratulated him on a job well done. Mark commented how by all measures it was the best event we’d ever done, and congratulated Paul on his hard work.

That’s when Paul showed him the list: 37 things that could make the next event better. He’d taken the time to reflect on each success while the event was happening and took notes on future improvements!

So what will you remember about 2019? Will it be only what went wrong—or will you also spend time thinking about what went right?

When it comes time to reflect, make sure you’re looking back in a way that will help you move forward.  Spend time reflecting on your wins and losses because each hold their own lessons that can help you grow.


By John Maxwell  | December 3, 2019


Why Your Brainstorming Sessions Are Failing

By Dawna Kinnunen • 14 Nov, 2018
And steps you can take to promote participation, stimulate ideas, and generate results
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