Harvard psychology of leadership empowerment eylon

Follett and Empowerment:
Her Legacy and Our Future
Dafna Eylon, Ph.D.
The F. Carlyle Tiller Chair of Business
and Associate Professor of
Psychology
Harvard University
March 10th, 2006


Agenda


Integrate Follett’s insights with current
understanding of empowerment.



Increase our recognition of empowerment
contributions and constraints



Overcoming the empowerment paradox


What is Empowerment?





Popular
Face validity
Multiple definitions
Viewed as both a state and a process


Exercise: What is empowerment?




Identify an experience in which you felt
either empowered or disempowered.
Identify a situation in which you helped
others become empowered or
disempowered.


Empowerment Worksheet
Empowered

Disempowered

You were:

You helped
others
become:

• What elements contributed to creating each situation?
• How did you act and feel in each situation?
• Be sure to say what really happened not what you
would have liked or think should have happened.


Behavioral Outcomes


Empowered individuals frequently report:







Taking risks, experimenting, trusting, and
including others
Looking inwards for improvement
Looking forward to going to work
Speaking well of the org to outsiders
Acknowledging the work of others


Behavioral Outcomes (2)


Disempowered individuals frequently report:






Not sharing ideas with others
Wasting time double guessing
Hesitant to request help
Rationalizing failures and blaming others


Affect Outcomes


Empowered individuals frequently identify
feeling:







Recognized, respected, energized, consulted
and thanked
Secure, capable, creative, and trusted
Supported by others
Having discretion over work and time
Having good will assumed

Affect Outcomes (2)


Disempowered individuals frequently identify
feeling:




Used, ignored, lacking approval or appreciation
Others will be recognized and they won’t
Easier to do things oneself in the short run than
to empower others.


Mary Parker Follett






Popular lecturer in the 1920s
Implicit theories consistent with today’s
understanding on empowerment.
Believed all individuals wish to self-govern
The role of biz is to develop individuals


Fears related to Empowerment



Fear of empowering others:





Losing control over others
Others will be recognized and appreciated while
they won’t
Not being viewed as powerful may lead to job
loss


Fears related to Empowerment
(2)


Fear of empowering themselves:






Others will expect too much
Need to work harder
Resented by others
No rewards for acting empowered

Punishment may accrue from changing the
system.


Empowerment
Enhancing and energizing context-specific
process that expands feelings of trust and
control in oneself as well as in one’s
organization, leading to outcomes such as
performance and satisfaction.


Follett and Empowerment







Focus on function
All members are equal and must share a
common goal (collective action)
Information is freely exchanged
Power and synergy are infinite
On-going process


The Empowerment Process
Satisfaction

Information
Responsibility
Active Belief

Self-Efficacy
Locus of Control
Self-Esteem
Unique Perf
Outcomes

Awareness
Intervention


Empowerment Paradox


Conditions that allow one individual to
empower others undermine the essence of
empowerment i.e., one party is superior to
another allowing:






Judgment
Providing or limiting resources
Withholding information

Resulting in lack of true redistribution


Follett’s Recommendations








Continuous interactive influence at all levels
Constantly seek and adapt to the law of the
situation and functional unity
Remove impediments
Power with and not over
Expect and create the dynamic and dialectic
Norms of respectful reciprocity


The four “M”s of Empowerment


The Micro Level – Individual



The Meso Level – Relational



The Macro Level – Organizational



The Misnomers – Bogus Empowerment


Can all organizational members
answer:






Why we do things the way we do?
What do we reward in this organization?
How do I access the resources I need?
What are the mission, values, and goals?
What do we need to achieve our mission,
goals, and values?


“Go to the people. Learn from them.
Love them. Start with what they know.
Build on what they have. But of the
best leaders, when their task is

accomplished, their work is done, the
people will remark: We have done it
ourselves.”
Chinese poem.


“Certain understandings between
leaders and followers are fragile:
the understanding, for example,
that real participation is a process
of becoming and never arriving. “
Max DePree