Sunday, May 1, 2011

the true meaning of empowerment

Empowerment! A word with so much power and rigor in its meaning. The process of empowerment can build a team and break a team. In society today, many organizations don’t understand the full meaning of empowerment and what it entails. According to Possner and kouzes, empowerment is “giving power to someone, thus resulting in a greater sense of confidence/self esteem and ability to do a task” (PowerPoint). Empowerment is only achieved through trust, respect and knowledge of individual’s strength and weaknesses. Without trust it is practically impossible to willfully share/ empower another individual. This is because the leader might be insecure and afraid of losing their power and sense of security. Trust is also important to empowerment because without it there will be conflicts between leaders and those empowered because of jealousy and distrust. Empowerment is a difficult; this is why it is mostly attributed to a good leader.  I have had some personal experience with empowerment in my life especially in a leadership situation.
                My student council years where filled with triumphs, passion, and a time of growth. This was a period in my life in which I had my most leadership experience one of these being empowerment.  I was personally empowered by my student council team executive Loraylnn Castillo. This occurred during our yearly event “Prom Showcase”. I was bestowed the event coordinator position by my exec; she empowered me with the authority to oversee and control this event.  This was an immense opportunity for me as a new and young member in the student council. I wasn’t only shocked, but I was excited and honored. I asked Loralynn why she decided to had decided to give this event to me instead of the other three members, and she replied: “because you were the only one who could handle”. At that time this statement didn’t make sense and I didn’t put any thought into it, I was just happy that after being an underdog for so long, now I had been given he opportunity to shine. Looking back now after reading the article on empowerment and the discussion in class, I realized that Loralynn made these decisions because she truly understood her team’s strength and weaknesses. She understood that I was better at communicating and sales merchandise than all the others in my team.
                Empowerment is an important necessity in every leadership institution. Because empowerment correlates with trust, this means that trust is also a very important aspect in every group or relationship. Relationships and institutions that have trust always seem to fall and are never successful. A good leader is one who trusts and empowers and also a strong organization is one in which the members get empowered and are very trusting of each other.