Delegation vs Empowerment

As a business leader, you have a responsibility to develop others, leverage your resources, and create an environment that engages people to volunteer their commitment. These are traits of a good leader, and one of the most effective tools you can use to fulfill your responsibilities and allow others to contribute is delegation and empowerment.

Delegation and empowerment are two ends of a continuum that leverage resources, develop others, and allow people to feel as if they are contributing.

The key difference between delegation and empowerment comes down to one important factor: who is in control, or how much autonomy does the individual have in the job.

“To delegate” is to deliberately assign a defined task, mission, or function to a specific person or entity, normally a direct report or subordinate.

“To empower” is a broader term that conveys giving or allowing others the freedom to act with little (or any) prompting, direction, or supervision. It also includes providing additional tools to enhance a person's capabilities.

There are three factors you must consider when deciding if you want to delegate or empower: knowledge, skills, and abilities. The more competent and experienced the team member, the more you can empower them to take ownership of the task and exercise more control. On the other hand, for less experienced team members, more direction and control may be required to ensure successful completion of the task.

The amount of control and autonomy required to complete a task is an important factor to consider when deciding whether to delegate or empower. Tasks that are very prescribed may not provide many opportunities for empowerment, but there may still be some aspects that can be delegated to team members to develop their skills and provide additional support.

Another important factor is the amount of control and autonomy that a leader is willing to give when deciding whether to delegate or empower. Unfortunately, some leaders have a tendency to micromanage everything and everyone, feeling that they must be involved in every decision and activity.

Leaders who micromanage may feel that their team members don’t have the necessary knowledge, skills, or abilities to complete tasks successfully without their guidance. However, this mindset can be counterproductive, as it can stifle creativity and innovation, demotivate team members, and limit their potential for growth and development.

Moreover, micromanagement can be a drain on a leader’s time and energy, leaving them little time to focus on strategic initiatives and higher-level tasks. It can also create a sense of distrust between the leader and their team members, eroding the team’s morale and productivity.

Your job, as a leader, is to develop others, leverage your resources, accomplish the work, and create an environment that engages people to volunteer their commitment. You can do this by giving people appropriate levels of control and autonomy with delegation and empowerment.

Delegation and empowerment creates a sense of ownership and responsibility within your team. It allows your team members to take the lead in their assigned tasks and work towards achieving the desired results. This, in turn, leads to increased productivity, better teamwork, and improved morale.

Delegation and empowerment also help in developing your team members’ skills and abilities. As you delegate tasks and empower them to make decisions, they gain valuable experience and knowledge that will benefit them in their career growth.

Moreover, by delegating and empowering your team members, you as a leader can be free to focus on strategic initiatives and higher-level tasks. As you delegate more tasks, you free up your time and energy to focus on more significant issues, such as planning, strategizing, and creating new business opportunities.

Delegation and empowerment are powerful tools that can help leaders leverage their resources, develop their team members, and create an environment that fosters engagement and commitment. By understanding the differences between delegation and empowerment, leaders can determine when to use each one and how to apply them effectively.

Transactional vs. Transformational Leadership: What’s the Difference?

Transactional vs. transformational leadership is not a question of a good vs. bad, right vs. wrong approach to leadership. While they are in fact opposite approaches to leadership, both offer advantages and are important styles of leadership to understand and apply in certain types of situations.   

Transactional leadership is a task-oriented style of leadership based on a system of reward and punishment (i.e. extrinsic motivation). A transactional leader will clearly specify their expectations for performance and hold their employees accountable for meeting those expectations; good performance is recognized and rewarded, poor performance is reprimanded. 

While transactional leadership has been shown to be effective, the big downside to it is that it doesn't drive extra role behavior (i.e. going above and beyond the basic requirements of the role). Under this style employees will do their jobs but you're unlikely to get any extra effort. 

Transformational leadership is a relationship-oriented style of leadership. Transformational leaders motivate and inspire their employees to move in the right direction by creating a compelling vision for the future, helping them to see the purpose in their work, and helping them to learn and grow. 

Studies have shown that employees of transformational leaders are more likely to engage in extra role behavior - that is, put in effort above and beyond what is required for their role. 

Both transactional and transformational leadership are effective in achieving intended results. 

Transactional leaders focus on organizational performance and employee supervision. These leaders are not looking much toward innovating for the future, but rather maximizing productivity in the present. They focus on making the day-to-day business of an organization flow smoothly. 

Transformational leaders focus on organizational change and employee development. These leaders devote more time to developing a strategy for the future of their team or organization, then motivating and inspiring employees to buy into that vision. This leadership is most effective in organizations or teams that need a leader to guide them towards positive change. 

The transformational leadership style has clear advantages when it comes to promoting growth, innovation and creativity within individuals, teams and an organization as a whole. 

A study in Frontiers in Psychology found that transactional leadership led employees “to perceive the culture as more goal, than innovation, oriented,” whereas transformational leadership led employees to see the organizational culture as more innovative. Employees feel they are encouraged to develop as professionals, growing their base of skills and knowledge. 

A key part of the overall strategy of a transformational leader is to encourage innovation and creativity in the workplace. The focus on employee development is important to cultivating the future leaders an organization needs, as employees grow into the shoes of their leaders and emulate their style. 

In developing, adapting and applying these two styles of leadership, it’s important to consider both the advantages and disadvantages of each, along with the current work situation your team and organization may be functioning in. 

Transactional Leadership: While it’s the best approach for maximizing operational efficiency, transactional leadership can fall short in the areas of innovation, long-term strategy creation and employee development. 

Transformational Leadership: While best for creating strategy and fostering organizational change, transformational leadership sometimes lacks the attention to detail, as these leaders are less concerned about daily workflow and processes. It also relies on having the type of leader who can sustain both a great deal of motivation and passion for a long period of time. 

If there is anything that organizational leaders have learned, it is that change is happening faster than ever, and those efficient processes and goals need constant evaluation. 

You can help motivate your team and successfully lead them through transformation, confidently driving your organization toward positive change with transformational leadership.

Lean Roundup #192 – May 2025

A selection of highlighted blog posts from Lean bloggers from the month of May 2025.  You can also view the previous monthly Lean Roundups here.  

 

Psychological Safety: You get your say, not always your way. – Mark Graban explains that psychological safety doesn't mean consensus. It doesn't mean you'll get your way every time.

 

The Improvement Kata and DMAIC – Mark Rosenthal talks about the connection between the improvement kata and DMAIC principles.

 

Failure to Identify Risks - Alen Ganic explores three common categories of risk—technical, people, and timing—through examples that illustrate the importance of proactive risk management.

 

The 3 Levels of Lean Mistake-Proofing (Poka-Yoke): How to Prevent Defects and Boost Quality (Boston Edition) - Paul Critchley explores the three levels Lean mistake-proofing and how you can apply them to optimize your operations with a New England style example.

 

The Importance of Act in the PDCA – Christoph Roser says despite its apparent simplicity, there are many struggles involved with PDCA’s proper use and it seems that the Act part is especially challenging so he digs deeper into why and how to Act in the PDCA.

 

Stop Reacting to Red Light Metrics: Why ‘Two Reds in a Row’ Is a Misleading Rule of Thumb – Mark Graban writes about how people react to “red” data points in their workplace metrics, misleading rules of thumb, and why process behavior charts are more valid.

 

The Hardest Thing - Seeing What Is - Pascal Dennis talks about the cognitive biases that afflict human beings and hinder our ability to see.

 

The Control Tower – Learning to See What Is – Pascal Dennis talk about perhaps the most useful management system: the Control Tower (aka Big Room, Cockpit or ‘Obeya’).

 

Yokoten: Capturing and Sharing Best Practices - José R. Ferro explains that to accelerate learning and change, don’t copy blindly—observe, adapt, and apply with purpose and that’s where yokoten drives real transformation.

 

Executing Strategy through Daily Management  - Robson Gouveia and José R. Ferro explain how daily management closes the gap between strategy and execution by aligning daily work with strategic objectives, enabling real-time performance tracking, and fostering a culture of problem-solving.

 

Perspectives on People-Centric Improvement - Mark Reich highlights the essential role of people in driving lasting improvement. Drawing from Toyota’s principle of respect for people, contributors explore how activating, developing, and engaging employees unlocks true productivity and sustainable transformation across organizations.

 

A Free Resource for Leaders: The Mistake-Smart Leader’s Checklist – Mark Graban created a simple new resource from Singo Prize winning book The Mistakes That Make Us, that you can use as a team conversation prompt, a coaching framework, or a reminder on your office wall.

Top 7 Qualities of Good Modern Manager

We’ve all worked for bad managers, and most of us can remember how it made us feel. Some of us have even left a role or the organization itself as a result of bad management. In fact, studies show that “seven in 10 U.S. workers say they would leave a job if they had a bad manager.”

Here are seven qualities that will improve your ability to manage and become the best you can be:

Connect the Work to the Vision

Everyone wants to feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves. Help your employees understand how their individual contributions support the company’s overall success. Validate their concerns and empower them to make decisions that are in the best interest of the organization. Listen to their ideas and suggestions for improvement.

Communicative

Being honest and transparent builds employees’ trust in management. Managers need to be open with their employees, and that openness should go both ways. Good managers give honest feedback and are open to feedback in kind.

The best managers also know how to communicate goals and expectations to employees to ensure that everyone knows what’s expected of them. And don’t forget, half of communicating is listening—the best managers listen to their employees and respond thoughtfully.

Engaged in Your Work

You can’t expect your employees to be engaged at work if you aren’t. This means demonstrating not only a passion for the vision and for the work, but also for your employees. Meet with them regularly, both as a team and through regular 1:1s. Get to know them as people. Learn their goals and desires, as well as their strengths and weaknesses. Show up for them and they’ll show up for you.

Calculated Risk-Taker

It will be impossible for you to thrive in the next normal if you are risk-averse. As Mark Zuckerberg said, “In a world that’s changing so quickly, the biggest risk you can take is not taking any risk.”

Those risks have to be compatible with the type of world you live in, naturally. You have to be well-prepared, composed and focused, so that the decisions you make stand the best chance of being right.

Empowering

As a manager, it might be tempting (and sometimes easier) to just do the work yourself, but that’s a temporary fix. Great bosses don’t control; they coach. This means providing feedback on a regular basis, developing your employees’ problem-solving skills, and setting broad goals while giving your team room to figure out how they’ll achieve them. Managers don’t need to have all the answers. They need to set up appropriate challenges for those they supervise so they can try new things and learn.

Fostering Psychological Safety

For innovation to happen, team members need to feel safe and trust that the other members of their team have their back. That goes for their manager, too. This can be achieved by role-modelling the kind of behaviors that generate trust, such as encouraging debate, allowing people to express their opinions and share ideas, and allowing people to make mistakes and learn from them.

We are living in a time of constant change and, some would even say, constant crisis management. Making your people feel safe through this ambiguity is a key skill to develop in managers.

Future-focused

Of course, you have to concentrate on what has to be done today to get the jobs and projects completed. But you have to balance day-to-day operations with the big picture. Taking time to reflect can set your team up for success. We need to be able to take strategic pauses to separate the signal from the noise, make connections we might not have made in the moment, and prioritize how to move forward. Assessing how things are going at regular intervals and thinking through the most efficient way of doing things. For instance, a new manager might spend time getting to know their team and learning about what they do before optimizing operations.

Good management skills take time and effort, but they are worth the trouble. A good manager can make a real difference in employee engagement, loyalty and productivity. This is a win-win for both the organization and the individual employees.

Lean Quote: Leadership in Organizations Need to Embrace Change for Different Results

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"All organizations are perfectly designed to get the results they are now getting. If we want different results, we must change the way we do things."   —  Tom Northup   

Tom Northup's quote emphasizes the need for intentional change to achieve new outcomes. Organizations must be willing to reassess their current structures and practices to drive meaningful results. 

1. Embrace a Growth Mindset: Effective leaders encourage continuous learning, innovation, and adaptability. By promoting a willingness to question the status quo, they inspire teams to think creatively and pursue excellence. 

2. Redefine Organizational Goals: To achieve different results, leaders must set new goals and align the organization's mission with these aspirations. Clear communication of a compelling vision motivates teams to work toward a common purpose. 

3. Encourage Collaboration: Change requires collective effort. Leaders who prioritize collaboration harness all perspectives in decision-making, fostering an environment where every team member feels valued. 

4. Adopt Continuous Improvement Practices: Organizations need to be agile to respond to challenges and opportunities. Adopting Lean methodologies promotes problem solving, productivity, and continuous improvement, enabling better adaptation to market changes. 

5. Invest in Leadership Development: Leadership plays a pivotal role in driving change. Investing in leadership development equips leaders with the skills to navigate complex challenges and lead transformational initiatives, ensuring sustained success. 

6. Measure and Evaluate Progress: Leaders must establish mechanisms for measuring and evaluating progress to ensure desired results. Setting key performance indicators (KPIs), conducting regular assessments, and soliciting feedback helps make informed decisions and course correct as needed. 

In conclusion, Northup's quote underscores the importance of strategic leadership and change in achieving different results. Organizations willing to challenge existing paradigms, embrace innovation, and prioritize collaboration will be better positioned to thrive.