Anti-Empowerment

10 Reasons Not to Call Yourself an Empowering Leader
By Ron Edmondson on Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

I love all the talk these days about delegation and empowering of leaders. I wrote earlier about leading leaders and not followers (Read that post HERE), so I certainly agree with the trend. I talk to people in ministry and business frequently, however, who are led by insecure, controlling leaders. It led me to write the following list.

Here are 10 reasons you may want to reconsider calling yourself an empowering leader:

1.Your number one answer is “NO”.
2.You have to personally approve every decision and control every outcome.
3.Everyone on your team works “for you” and not “with you”.
4.You use the word “I” more than the word “we”.
5.Your idea of delegation is telling people what to do, when and how to do it.
6.You say “Do this” far more than you ask “What should we do?”.
7.Nothing happens in your organization without your knowledge.
8.You consistently reverse the decisions of the team.
9.You control information because information is power.
10.You crush people when they make a mistake.

I would say if you are guilty of two or more of these on a regular basis, you might want to evaluate if you truly are an empowering leader. (BTW, I’m reading over the list….and checking it twice…to find out if I’ve been naughty or nice!)

What else would you add to the list?

A follow-up post tomorrow.

Blessings
3 John 8
Bill H.