By Aaron Guyett
Imagine the worst problem you face.
Think about it’s confusing difficulty and challenging environment.
In your mind, take all of its layers of complexity, and turn them into mazes.
Take all the points of friction and seemingly insurmountable obstacles that lie within each part of your problem and turn them into doors with sound locks.
Now imagine someone came up to you, giving you all the keys to the door locks and a map to the maze.
It won’t make the journey easy, but the only thing that is keeping you from solving the problem is you. This is a good illustration of empowerment.
Stewart Tubbs wrote a great text book entitled, Systems Approach to Small Group Interaction, and he stated,
“Empowerment is a leadership style that enables the leader more effectively to utilize the talents, abilities, and knowledge of others and, at the same time, to increase his or her available time to work on more strategic activities, rather than on ‘putting out fires.’”[1]
This is obviously geared toward leaders empowering others, but there is a ton of crossover into all areas of life.
For instance, if I am trying to look better, feel better, and move better, I may empower the talents and abilities of an Innovative Results coach to help me in that department, so I can focus my empowered time and energy on my children, spouse, business, or community.
Empowerment has built with it responsibility, intelligence, and experience.
Without taking responsibility for our own thoughts, words, and actions, we will never experience the positive attitude and life-changing perspective that comes with empowerment.
[1] Stewart L. Tubbs, Systems Approach to Small Group Interaction, Boston, MA: McGraw Hill, 2011, p. 12.
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