Breaking the Proactive Paradox

Introduction

If all your team members were empowered, using sensible independent judgment, and displaying appropriate initiative, what difference would that make? What difference would it make to team performance? What difference would it make to morale, engagement, and job satisfaction? What if you could make empowerment work?

There’s a plethora of popular management books and leadership development programs brimming with tactics and methods to inspire employees to be more proactive. These practices are mostly ineffective, however. Why?

Conventional empowerment methods sidestep two workplace relationships. It’s these two relationships that hold the key to solving the employee empowerment puzzle. The interaction between the leader and the team ...