You might be surprised how many manager feel concerned when they need to leave their business – you see they have fallen short in being able to empower their employees to cope without them.

And that’s a problem…

It must be very wearing for managers to feel that they just cannot absent themselves, when they are missing people in place who can do a great job in their absence.

They need the support of each of the employees in their teams – and it’s up to the manager to make this happen.

It’s an amazing experience as a manager when you turn someone on to the hidden capabilities they have within them already.

By freeing him or herself up by using the latent abilities of their people, an empowering manager truly lives and breathes the experience – and that’s powerful.

Of course, when a manager has been used to keeping every tricky decision to themselves, it’s a bit of a fear to let things go – and it can be one of the  best things they can learn to do.

Individuals start to flower in their abilities and become the swan to the ugly duckling of the past. – producing results even beyond their own imagination.

A manager who unleashes the potential of their people in this way will achieve a fulfilment of their own possibilities and that of those in their care too.

Look, managers are not perfect in every way – they cannot fix everything in their business on their own; it’s their ability to get the most from their people that makes the difference.

Any employee will grow and develop hugely when given responsibility – empowering them to act and make decisions is a great way forward for them.

And when a manager says, ‘Look, do your best and I’ll always support you’, they will take risks at just the right level for them.

This is precisely the way that the very best managers gradually release what they do into the increasingly capable hands of members of their team.

Customers like to have their problems fixed by the first person they approach. Having an employee call for the manager only causes irritation and frustration.

They can see it as a stalling technique and is more likely to require more costly remedies for the problem the customer has.

Managers facing such an intervention are more likely to have annoyed customers to face, which is not much fun for anyone.

Empowering your customer facing employees is a great step to delighting your customers.

Many managers do other people’s roles without even thinking.

It’s quite a step to recognize that employees will evolve their capabilities when they have the trust of the manager and are allowed to do more.

In the front line with customers, having the power to solve their problems fast is a particularly valuable asset.

Where there are a bunch of employees who are not able to contribute fully because a manager hasn’t been able to ‘let go’ enough, they almost wilfully step back when they could get more involved.

They shy away from making decisions they aren’t regularly called to make.

If a manager makes all the top decisions and involves his people as a minimum, they will do as they’re told, collect their regular salary slip and do only what’s asked of them.

Many managers have worked their way up in an organization and feel a close relationship with being in the thick of the work.

When they try to take a step upwards into a full management role, it makes them feel uncomfortable – as if they are not working ‘hard enough’.

So they find it hard to not  do the whole job, despite having people around them who would willingly do a bit more.

You might be surprised how many manager feel concerned when they need to leave their business – you see they have fallen short in being able to empower their employees to cope without them.

And that’s a problem…

Empowerment means a degree of freedom for a manager and, perhaps even more important, fulfilled and developed employees.