Keywords
Employee empowerment, coaching, positive feedback, open-ended questions
BARRIERS TO SHARING DECISION-MAKING
A recent IBM Research survey of 1,700 highranking managers in 64 countries found that empowering employees is a key factor in achieving outstanding corporate performance. A gap between recognition of the need for empowerment, and actual practice, however, persists in many organizations. Three types of barriers to empowerment are commonly found in companies.
First, leaders may feel anxiety about their own job security. They equate empowering employees to ceding control and fear it will backfire on them, endangering their …