In this second part of the series on being an agile leader, Diane Egbers of Leadership Excelleration discusses the role of Empowerment.
Host Carole Dorn-Bell asks how the role of Empowerment complements the role highlighted in the previous episode, Adventure.
Diane says Empower tends to be the super power of Gen X (commonly characterized as those born between 1965 and 1980).
“These are the folks that love to coach, are collaborative, more affiliative and really bring out the best in teams,” Diane says. “They’re really great at creating collaboration, empowering others by coaching them into how you operate effectively on collaborative teams and how, then, we value every person at the table.”
The ability to Empower is critical to getting the most from all team members.
Carole asks about the essential knowledge and abilities it takes to Empower teams to achieve the best possible learning outcomes.
A vital skill set is making sure there is an emphasis on collaboration. That begins with having a common vision and having coaching and alignment of skills. If a team member is unsure whether their contributions are valid, it’s critical to coach them into a vital place where they’re making full contributions.
The Adventure and Empower roles play off each other.
Adventurers, often millennials, go off and research best practices. The coaching comes in when they bring back that data to a team and say, okay, how is this relevant to us as leaders?
“Those that Empower tend to have enough content knowledge that they can help Adventurers sort through what’s important and what is non-essential,” Diane says.
To learn more, Diane recommends the Harvard Business Review piece called Agile at Scale, especially to help larger school districts.
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