About a year ago, I launched the Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast as a way to reach more people with something I have a passion for: great leadership. In January’s episode, we talked a little about why clarity and trust are important to create an empowering culture. In today’s episode, I want to build on that idea a little more. We’ll talk about how to grow a culture of empowering people.
What we value determines what we do. So, when you guard your values above all else, you can surrender control to the people you lead. Your team gains freedom to create within the values. (I’ve explored the idea of building a value-driven culture in a couple of other episodes of this podcast.)
Sometimes, as leaders, we think there’s no way someone could do the job as well as we can. Is that a leader’s mindset? No! A leader says, eventually, the right person will do it better than I ever could!
@craiggroeschel
Most leaders delegate tasks. The best leaders delegate authority. When you delegate tasks, you create followers, but when you delegate authority, you create leaders.
When you delegate authority, you’re giving your leaders an opportunity to grow. When you tell them exactly what to do, you’re controlling them. Remember, you can have control or you can have growth, but you can’t have both.
The Power of Empowering People
If you empower the right people, there is no limit to what you can do. But if you don’t, you are the limiting factor in your organization! The strength of your organization is not a reflection of what you control. The strength of your organization is a reflection of who you empower and trust.
In the podcast, I’ll show you how one company, Zappos, has created an extraordinarily empowering culture with empowering people by extending clarity and trust to their employees and guarding their values. I’ve also included a couple of discussion questions I hope will help you think about the decisions you make, the way they can shape your culture, and the way you can continue to create a culture full of empowering people.
You can listen to other episodes, like “Creating a Value-Driven Culture,” or find show notes for this episode here. New episodes release on the first Thursday of each month.
Be yourself! Remember, people would rather follow a leader who’s always real than one who’s always right.
