Many leaders achieve their goals and even increase company revenue. But in a world of fast-paced change and complexity, businesses need employees who will proactively engage in problem-solving, drive change, and take initiative to innovate. To create a competitive advantage, leaders need a committed team that can take charge. However, challenging the status quo in most organizations is risky. If a leader doesn't know how to empower others well, evidence suggests that team morale and the business suffer. Discover the secrets to fostering empowerment and ignite a spark in your team to achieve excellence with these five strategies. Why igniting the spark in others holds the key to achieving excellence The word empowerment has come in and out of favor with leadership. Sadly, a common, overly simplified misconception of empowerment is that leaders give away power. Empowerment is the promotion of the skills, knowledge, and confidence necessary to take charge. Recently, empowerment has started to gain renewed acceptance within executive leadership circles, and for good reasons. Leaders need committed employees. “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” Bill Gates Empowerment shapes feelings and actions that enhance others' intrinsic motivation. Leaders cannot control every situation and outcome, and followers with intrinsic motivation persist during complex and ambiguous work. They learn from failure rather than giving up. Evidence suggests a positive link between higher levels of employee intrinsic motivation and work productivity. It is a moderating factor in employee engagement. There is abundant research to support that empowering others creates improved: Team effectiveness Work satisfaction Shared identity W ell-being Autonomy Control Self-management Confidence When leaders encourage followers to take the initiative with tasks such as making decisions, it increases psychological ownership, leading to a sense of responsibility and positive workplace behaviors.⁠ 5 Strategies to empower others for excellence Although there is limited research into the most effective means for a leader to empower others, your leadership plays a key role. Managerial practices and leadership are the primary drivers of if followers voluntarily take charge. You can encourage others to take charge by applying good active listening skills, asking for input, and delegating authority. Empowerment Strategy #1: Active Listening Being truly heard is rare in the workplace. Listening leaves your team feeling valued, affirmed, and emotionally connected to you. Active listening is the ability to hear and improve mutual understanding. When you actively listen, you pay attention, show interest, suspend judgment, reflect, clarify, summarize, and share to gain clarity and understanding. When you listen, you are available to the other person. The following video from Simon Sinek is about creating an environment where the other person feels heard. Empowerment Strategy #2: Leading with Questions Questions grounded in curiosity create influence. Not all questions are equal. For example, if you ask followers why are they behind schedule? You will likely get a defensive response rather than a solution. If you ask, what key things need to happen for you to achieve the goal? You will encourage followers to apply critical thinking to identify a solution. Learning to ask the right question instead of always having the answer benefits you, your team, and the organization. Leaders who ask questions become better listeners and gain deeper insights into how to bring out the best in others and guide the organization. Followers asked questions develop greater self-awareness, self-confidence, and empowerment. Empowerment Strategy #3: Delegating Authority Caught between the pressure of urgent and important work demands, delegating is often one leadership approach that gets cut. One of the more complex and essential things for a leader is going from doing to leading. Giving up authority and responsibility can seem counterintuitive to leadership. Spending a little time and effort upfront to consider the task, situation, employee, communication, and leadership support is crucial to delegating effectively. If you want to do a few small things right, do them yourself. If you want to do great things and make an impact, learn to delegate. – John C. Maxwell Empowerment Strategy #4: Vision Articulating a compelling vision clarifies direction, inspires confidence and action, and coordinates efforts. Evidence suggests that a compelling vision is directly and positively related to creative performance. To be considered compelling, a vision needs to be desired, beneficial to others, challenging, and visual. Stories and metaphors are powerful ways to connect with others. Developing a vision is an exercise of both the head and the heart, it takes some time, it always involves a group of people, and it is tough to do well. Kotter, Leading Change Empowerment Strategy #5: Servant Leadership Leading from a follower's first point of view, such as servant leadership , results in a willingness to take charge, set high standards, and a devotion to each other. Trust, love, and belonging unlock the teams ability to excel because of their differences rather than in spite of them. The following short video from leadership guru Ken Blanchard provides some thoughts on the power of servant leadership in today's workplace. Robert Greenleaf is attributed by most as the founder of servant leadership, described a servant leader as a servant first and used the following test to answer the question, are you a servant leader? The best test, and difficult to administer, is: do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or, at least, will they not be further deprived. ~Greenleaf & Spears To learn more about servant leadership , check out this article, which includes an assessment to help you determine whether your current leadership style aligns with servant leadership and the ten leadership characteristics. What is your real empowerment challenge? Key Summary Points: Leaders need followers who take charge to create a competitive advantage Changing and challenging the status quo is risky in most organizations Empowerment shapes feelings and actions that enhance followers' intrinsic motivation. There is abundant research on the benefits of team effectiveness, work satisfaction, shared identity, and well-being that result from empowering followers. Trust, love, and belonging unlock the team's ability to excel because of their differences rather than inspire them. Managerial practices and leadership are the primary drivers of whether followers will voluntarily take charge. Servant leadership results in followers' willingness to set high standards, devotion to one another, and taking charge. References: Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-changing leadership habits: 10 Proven principles that will elevate people, profit, and purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting. Edelmann, C. M., Boen, F., & Fransen, K. (2020). The power of empowerment: Predictors and benefits of shared leadership in organizations. Frontiers in Psychology, 11 , 582894-582894. Greenleaf, R. K., & Spears, L. C. (2002). Servant-leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness (25th-anniversary ed.). Paulist Press. Leavy, B. (2020). The dynamics of empowering leader-follower relationships. Strategy & Leadership, 48 (6), 27-33. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/SL-09-2020-0125 Li, S., He, W., Yam, K. C., & Long, L. (2015). When and why empowering leadership increases followers' taking charge: A multilevel examination in china. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 32 (3), 645-670.

Could gratitude be a secret weapon to transform your stress-filled workplace? In tough times, negativity can spread like wildfire, leaving your team living for the weekend. Emotions are social contagions. Minor issues escalate quickly to critical concerns. After a while, compounded complexity and stress harm performance and employee well-being. Today's employees are looking to leaders for more help. Evidence suggests that 72% of leaders feel used up at the end of their day, a significant increase from two years prior. This is where the power of gratitude makes all the difference. Often forgotten in tough times, gratitude can restore a positive mindset, acting as a positive social contagion. Discover how you can make gratitude your leadership superpower with these three practical tips. Why gratitude matters Gratitude is a positive emotion that brings balance to a negative mindset . Many studies link gratitude with positive personal benefits, such as: Improved health Increased happiness Decreased anxiety Decreased depression Likewise, evidence suggests that feeling appreciated is linked to well-being and employee performance. Those who feel valued by their leader are more likely to report higher levels of: Physical and mental health Engagement Job satisfaction Intrinsic motivation Here is a short video that explains the science behind why gratitude matters. If you immerse yourself in the daily news, the future of work appears dire – supply chain constraints, geopolitical conflict, inflation, and historic labor shortages are projected to persist. Employees are stressed out, and the costs of workplace stress and burnout are high . To quantify workplace stress costs , a recent study found that workplace stressors in the United States account for more than 120,000 deaths per year and approximately 5-8% of annual healthcare costs. The Mayo Clinic found that the personal and organizational side effects of stress include: broken relationships substance abuse depression decreased customer satisfaction reduced productivity increased employee turnover Stress is an emotional contagion. Research has demonstrated that co-workers can spread stress within a workgroup. For example, someone on your team who feels down enters a meeting. Within a few minutes, the entire team's emotions mimic their behaviors and non-verbal expressions. The following short NPR video discusses how emotions like stress are contagious. What does leadership gratitude look like? According to the American Psychological Association, gratitude is a sense of thankfulness and happiness in response to receiving a gift, either a tangible benefit given by someone or a fortunate happenstance. "Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all the others." – Cicero. As a leader, the practice of gratitude consists of affirming the goodness of others. A habit of gratitude involves acknowledging the good and feeling thankful. While distinctly different, empathy, kindness, and love are closely related to the virtue of gratitude. Effective leadership is more than making someone do something. It is about the selfless influence of others and the ability to bring out the best in others. Here is a good video from gratitude expert Robert Emmons addressing gratitude. We can all cultivate an attitude of gratitude. Evidence suggests that it is best to start by making gathering and giving gratitude easy. Here are three tips for building a habit of gratitude. Gratitude Habit Tip #1: Stop. Look. Go. The following video presents how practicing gratitude begins by getting quiet, looking through our senses, and then taking the opportunity presented. Gratitude Habit Tip #2: Make it easy When building a habit it is consistency and not intensity. Have you got an app for that? Gratefulness.io is a tool that makes getting started easy. I have used this tool for a few years and found it helpful for building an attitude of gratitude. The app will send you a simple daily prompt asking you about what you are grateful for, and it stores your responses in a private online journal. What you record can be as simple as what comes to your mind or a purposeful reflection on something good that happened that day and why you felt good. I find the reminders Gratefulness.io sends of what I was grateful for from my journal very encouraging , and a way for me to track over time. Gratitude Habit Tip #3: Give it away Giving gratitude makes you happier. After listing what you are grateful for each day, take a few moments to practice giving gratitude. Not only will reflecting and journaling what you are thankful for make you happier but giving appreciation will multiply the positive effects on your emotions. Simply send a thank you note or, better yet, deliver the thank you note or say thank you in person. How important do you think gratitude is for you and your team as you look ahead to what experts suggest will be another challenging new year, and what is the real gratitude challenge for you? References: Adecco. (2021). Resetting normal: Defining the new era of work 2021 [PDF]. The Adecco Group. APA. (2012). APA survey finds feeling valued at work linked to well-being and performance. Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-changing leadership habits: 10 Proven principles that will elevate, people, profit, and purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting. Goh, J., Pfeffer, J., & Zenios, S. (2016). The relationship between workplace stressors and mortality and health costs in the United States [PDF]. Management Science. Harvard Medical School. (2021). Giving thanks can make you happier. Harvard Health Publishing. McCullough, M. E., Emmons, R. A., & Tsang, J. (2002). The grateful disposition: A conceptual and empirical topography. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82 (1), 112-127. The Gratefulness Team. (2021). What is Gratitude? A Network for Grateful Living

Leadership creates pressure. In the Netflix series The Playbook, Doc Rivers shares the philosophy that inspired the Boston Celtics to a championship and his response to racism while being the Los Angeles Clippers head coach. One valuable lesson he shares for leaders to consider is a mindset that "pressure is a privilege." What is the alternative to leadership pressure? No productive conflict? No aligned goals? No board meetings? No difficult customers? As an executive coach, I spend a lot of time speaking with leaders. One common theme is the immense pressure they are under. It is easy for leaders to become quickly overwhelmed by the increasingly complex and fast-paced digital business environment. Stress is a serious issue facing leaders. A recent extensive global study of CEOs and C-suite executives suggests that 56% are burned out, a 52% increase from the prior year. Leading successful organizations creates personal and professional situations that result in increased stress. It seems logical to think of pressure as a negative and something to be avoided, but as a leader, should you? Here are three reasons to embrace the leadership journey, including the pressure it brings, and four tips for making better decisions under pressure. "A soft, easy life is not worth living if it impairs the fiber of brain and heart and muscle. We must dare to be great, and we must realize that greatness is the fruit of toil and sacrifice and high courage." Theodore Roosevelt Reason #1: Pressure Accelerates Change One reason to embrace pressure is that pressure accelerates change, and leadership is about change. In the book Leading Change, renowned change management thought leader John Kotter identified that overcoming complacency to change requires a sense of urgency. Leaders in a fast-changing world need to be influential in articulating their vision and, paradoxically, at the same time, be open to changes as the idea needs to change due to the world's turbulence. Leading change creates pressure and stressful situations. While too little or too much stress creates anxiety and health problems, research at UC Berkeley demonstrated that some stress improves performance and health. Pressure influences leaders and organizations to move in new directions and reject the status quo. No organization wants to stay the same, and pressure is a powerful change agent for leaders who want to accelerate change. Reason #2: Pressure Creates Learning Leaders and organizations need to learn at a pace consistent with change. They need to perpetually learn because the future is unpredictable. You are either ripe and rotting or green and growing. But shouldn't the learning process be as free from stress as possible? A foundational research study on learning discovered that an element of struggle significantly improves long-term retention. While pressure can slow the learning rate temporarily, it also improves long-term retention and application transfer. Pressure creates desirable difficulty and enhances the learning opportunity and the opportunity for personal and professional growth . "Usually, if you have tremendous pressure, it’s because an opportunity comes along. Give me the ball. Give me the problem to solve. Let’s figure this out. Let’s go." Billie Jean King Reason #3: Pressure Creates Purpose High-pressure situations reveal more about who you are than the specific skills you possess. The unfortunate reality is that it often takes the pressure of a crisis to break away from the day-to-day. Pressure creates a reason to challenge assumptions about our purpose or the organization's purpose. There is no better life lived than a life lived on purpose. Studies have demonstrated that leading with purpose results in higher personal satisfaction, performance, innovation, and economic growth. "Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater." — Viktor Frankl How to Make Your Best Decision Under Pressure How you approach decisions while under pressure makes a difference in the outcome for you and those you lead. Here are four tips to help you make your best decision: Decision-Making Tip #1: Visualize the desired outcome. Athletes are trained to visualize themselves successfully achieving their goals before events. Numerous scientific studies link creative visualization to improved performance, goal achievement, and stress management. Research supports that creative practice boosts our confidence and competence. Check out this short video from an Olympic athlete on the power an use of mental imagery. Decision-Making Tip #2: Be curious. Asking questions helps reveal alternative scenarios. The field of strategic foresight offers some great tools for assisting leaders with seeing around the corners, which can lead to feeling more competent and confident about your decision. The Futures Wheel, STEEPLE, and scenario planning are a few tools that can help leaders and organizations break free from a fixed mindset. Decision-Making Tip #3: Don't get stuck on stupid. One of my favorite leadership quotes comes from a military commander serving after Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans. At the time, the community was paralyzed and lacked direction. In an interview, the commander said he didn't know what specific time frames looked like but could guarantee the recovery operations would not be stuck on stupid. Leaders who are biased toward action and make decisions for the right reasons help overcome the fear of failure that comes with the pressure of the situation. Decision-Making Tip #4: Avoid isolation. Most leaders indicate that their organization does not provide the support needed to help them manage the increasing levels of stress they face. A leadership coach facilitates experimentation and self-discovery by applying what is discussed during the coaching conversation. Skillful executive coaching enables you to "dance in the present moment" and take the actions necessary for what matters to you. Modern organizations are like pressure cookers. Great leadership serves as a pressure control valve. When needed, releasing pressure to prevent catastrophic disasters and increasing organizational pressure when it's too low to maximize performance. The reality of a volatile work environment is that training for every potential cross-cultural leadership situation is impossible. As a leader, you are asked questions that have no known answer. Seeing the pressure of leadership as a privilege can help you enjoy the journey. References: Bjork, E. L., & Bjork, R. A. (2011). Making things hard on yourself, but in a good way: Creating desirable difficulties to enhance learning. Campbell, M., Baltes, J.I., Martin, A., & Meddings, K. (2019). The stress of leadership. Center for Creative Leadership. DDI. 2023 Global Leadership Forecast. Development Dimensions International. Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-Changing Leadership Habits: 10 Proven Principles That Will Elevate People, Profit, and Purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting. Ekeocha, T. (2015). The effects of visualization and guided imagery in sports performance Kotter, J. P. (2012). Leading change . Harvard Business Review Press. Ottesen, K. (2019). Tennis icon Billie Jean King on fighting for equal pay for women: Pressure is a privilege. The Washington Post. Pomerantz (Eds.) & FABBS Foundation, Psychology and the real world: Essays illustrating fundamental contributions to society (p. 56–64). Worth Publishers. Powell, A. (2018). When science meets mindfulness. The Harvard Gazette. Quinn, R. E., & Thakor, A. V. (2019). The economics of higher purpose: Eight counterintuitive steps for creating a purpose-driven organization . Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Incorporated. Sanders, R. (2013). Researchers find out why some stress is good for you. Berkley News.

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