Trust and Empowerment; Same difference?

These two things may not be the same, but there is a strong correlation between them. If you work in a high-trust environment there's a fair chance you feel empowered in your role. That means you're likely to feel you can make decisions without the need to seek approval at every turn. Conversely if you're in a decision making role such as managing something, yet you need to seek approval before even relatively minor decisions it's probably because you are operating in a low-trust environment. In those environments it's almost impossible to feel empowered.

 The benefits of empowerment and well-researched and documented. Most researchers agree with what most of us inherently know; when leaders feel empowered, they have improved job performance and greater job satisfaction. This article in the Harvard Business Review looked at 105 studies and over 30,000 employees to draw conclusions about how empowered employees perform. Given the data and what we know about modern leadership it does lead to one obvious question; why do some organisations and leaders still disempower their staff? Or perhaps it's a trust issue. Because trust and empowerment and so intrinsically linked, that if someone doesn't feel like they are trusted, they won't feel empowered.

"You can't have leadership in a vacuum"

One way I see the erosion of trust is the whole area of accountability and responsibility. The biggest mistake I think organisations and leaders make in this space is to try and hold people accountable for areas over which they don't hold responsibility. What I mean by this is, if you don't give someone the ability to make decisions and manage their area, then how can you hold them accountable for the decisions that have been made? For example, if someone is a budget holder, they have to have power over the spend of their budget (within published rules of course) to be held accountable for the performance of that budget. Likewise if someone has Key Performance Indicators (KPI) or is measured in their performance by a scorecard of sorts, they must have the ability to have direct control over some of the factors those metrics depend upon. Otherwise they end up in a situation where they are held responsible for things that are beyond their control. That's going to result in a breakdown of trust. And a leader who doesn't feel empowered - 'you can't have leadership in a vacuum'. Likewise if you're in a position of leadership, if you feel you need to hold on to all of the decision making for your team, then ultimately you are accountable. If you share the responsibility, you can start to empower your team and ultimately improve team performance.

Back to the question then, why don't some organisations and leaders trust? They probably don't trust, because they think that they are ultimately accountable. What if I delegate responsibility and they let me down? The key to delegation and ultimately building a high-trust environment is handing over the keys, but making them aware of what you're doing and (most importantly) that support is there for them. If you hand over responsibility it's essential that they know that they can request your support. When we hand over responsibility and support our teams we very quickly start to build trust. Maybe I'm naïve in this area, but I believe that most of us don't want to let down people who trust in us, particularly when we know that they are there to help if we need it. There's another side to this trust issue too. It's imperative that we hold each other accountable. I try to regularly say 'you can hold me accountable if I don't do what I say I'll do'. A high-trust environment is one where people have decision making power, but they are aware there are consequences for their actions too (and always always with support along the way).

Organisations and leaders that really want to grow will look towards building trust and empowering their people, not controlling and blaming. As for me? I want to be empowered, I want to be able to make mistakes, to have support and to grow. I want to be both trusted and to trust those around me. Isn't that the environment we all want to work in?