The Leadership Challenge: Enable Others to Act

Leaders enable others to act. They enlist the support and involve all those who must live with results and they make it possible for others to do good work. Leaders know that no one does his or her best when feeling weak, incompetent or alienated. They know those who are expected to produce the results must feel a sense of ownership. Some ways to do this: Collaboration, Develop Cooperative Goals, Seek Integrative Solutions, Build Trusting Relationships, and Foster Collaboration. These factors are all needed in building the trust to lead and function as a team.

With all this said enabling others requires to allow power in others, ensure self-leadership basically let people believe they can influence and control the organization. Providing choice, while being proactive in designing work allows people discretion and choice as well places colleagues at the center of solving critical problems.

What is 'Paradox of Power?' The power one has, allows the leader to give power away. Eliminate as many rules as possible, decrease the amount of routine work Increase employee flexibility regarding processes. One needs to assign non-routine jobs, encourage creative solutions to problems and define jobs more broadly. These all seem easy but successful organizations need to get this done not just talk about it. Other requirements to Enable Others to Act: Provide more freedom of access; Open the doors and facilitate freedom of movement; Increase your own power by forming strategic relationships;Take members of your staff to important meetings, business lunches and customer organizations; Find ways to connect them to sources of information; Find ways to shine the spotlight on the achievement of others.

An organization needs to understand to make the commitment to their employees needs to start at the top, with the trust down to the bottom.