“Empowerment” has become something
of a catch phrase not only in businesses and other secular organizations, but
in the church as well. We talk about being “empowering leaders” who call forth
the best in others. We want people to “feel
empowered” to exercise their gifts. We
hope those with whom we work will “become empowered” as the result of our
leadership.
Recently, I came across this
quote from Robert E. Quinn in Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within that changed my paradigm completely.
"We do not, however, empower
people. Empowerment cannot be delegated. We can only develop an appropriate
empowering environment where people will have to take the initiative to empower
themselves."
This caught my attention. Empowerment is not something I do to someone
else. Just as I cannot motivate another
person to do something, I cannot empower that person to release his or her
gifts. I cannot force them to be all
that they can be. The power is not in my
hands; it is in theirs. That’s what
empowerment is all about; it is internal not external.
I was visiting with a friend who
was interested in coaching, and I hoped to enlist him as client. In the course of the conversation, he said, “Tell
me about some of your success stories.”
This caught me off guard and offended me a bit. Quickly, I realized that my concept of
coaching was not based on my own success but on that of those I coach. If there is a “win,” it belongs to the person
being coached and not to me. I did not
share any “success stories” with my friend, and I must not have done a very
good job of explaining my approach since I did not get him as a client.
The role of the coach is not to
empower or to make someone a success.
The role of the coach, as Quinn explains the role of the leader, is to
create an environment where those with whom we work can come to empower
themselves. It is not about me; it’s
about you.
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