As a leader and avid student of leadership, I find it fascinating to watch how real-life leadership is transforming in many Thai organisations. I believe the current drive by organisations to empower their people is essential.
Independent, engaged, accountable and empowered frontline people are the key to success now. Like the dinosaurs, all-powerful controllers are facing their end times. The new generation doesn’t want to work for them, the more entrepreneurial see the opportunities, and only the deadwood seek to move back to the old ways.
However, empowering people is a challenge you must approach carefully, simultaneously and from different angles if it is going to work and stick.
Successfully creating and being an empowered organisation or team requires being human-centred. It requires leaders (from top to bottom) focusing attention on others rather than themselves. Empowerment means pushing the limits to help others reach their full potential.
Whether you are a C-Level, team leader or financial controller, you must remember it is not about you. Your job is to make others better through your work and to build their capability to stay empowered forever. You are no longer a manager; your role is to get things done.
If you are a senior leader, you need to walk the talk. You have to step back, transform your role and become an enabler rather than a director. You have to trust your people, accept that mistakes will happen and be a resource for them, rather than the other way around.
I recently heard Joao Domingos, vice-president of Fujitsu Western Europe, speak about this. When starting his organisation’s transformation with just a few key teams, he found himself devoting 50% of his own time to enabling their success at first. He transformed his entire job. This change affects leaders at all levels, not just the C-Level.
If you are an employee seeking more agency to do more things, you also need to step up and walk the talk. You have to take risks, be accountable, get out of your comfort zone and think in new ways. Your mindset needs to change, as does your skill set. New ways of working demand new ways of thinking and doing things. Let your boss know you are ready to do more and prove it.
Making this change is challenging, especially if the system seems set against you. Learn new things and teach others. Volunteer for new high-impact projects or shadow colleagues already doing things you want to do. Talk to people and find informal mentors. You don’t even need to step into a classroom if you don’t want to. Visibly seek and accept opportunities to do new things and create new value.
If you are an organisation serious about empowering your people to transform how work gets done, you need to build the systems, approaches and resources to make this work. Do not use old metrics to measure success if you are truly starting a journey to new ways of working.
Do not allow old ways of leading and bureaucracy to stop you from growing new successes. Commit to building these newly empowered people at scale in your organisation. Failing to address all of the above means your transformation will be too slow or strangled by the status quo.
Some organisations choose to hand this over to individuals or teams or build an academy approach. If you are an HR professional or a leader responsible for growing your team, this can also seem a daunting challenge. However, you are a critical part of this, and your organisation’s success. Listen to your people to find out what they need to learn. Transform your skill set to be a more serving and enabling leader or HR person.
How can I become effectively empowered? Presuming your current leadership is on board, or you will be seeking a new opportunity in which empowerment is a must, the latest report from Udemy, the popular online course platform, suggests some good places to start.
An analysis of course participation on Udemy shows that the following training themes saw increases in 2021, all of which support empowerment: Assertiveness (250%), Goal Setting (184%), Facilitation (148%) and Problem Solving (108%). Take out language and basic computer skills, and the top three human power skills developed were Communication, Leadership and Time Management skills.
These seven areas provide a great starting point to empowering, feeling empowered and acting empowered. They make an effective core to an academy approach that you can build cost-effectively, and that will help almost every business.
Arinya Talerngsri is Chief Capability Officer and Managing Director at SEAC — Southeast Asia’s Lifelong Learning Center. She can be reached by email at arinya_t@seasiacenter.com or https://www.linkedin.com/in/arinya-talerngsri-53b81aa. Talk to us about how SEAC can help your business during times of uncertainty at https://forms.gle/wf8upGdmwprxC6Ey9
