New way of leading: how to promote empowerment

Do you also perceive the recent power shift? Away from the hierarchical manager as a bottleneck, towards a leader who empowers employees. Empowered employees are the new leaders. Remote leadership is a real empowerment booster - micromanagement and excessive control are hardly possible from a distance. But how would you foster a culture of empowerment in a way that would interest an entire organization?

In this article, we explain how to roll out a new understanding of leadership across an organisation, in a manner that will receive viral attention. Why do we emphasize the viral aspect? It will make communication so much easier, as people will have the urge to talk about it.

Typical challenges:

• Our attention span is shorter than ever - this applies in particular to the communication and conveyance of leadership topics.
• What empowerment means is debatable. The prevailing understanding ranges from a laissez fair attitude (“As a manager, I can completely pull myself out”) via diffusion of responsibility (“Who is actually responsible here?”) to paradoxical demands (“I can let go as long as I’m in control”). Because of all the potential misunderstandings, it is so important to start with making the implicit beliefs explicit.
• It is difficult to predict when face-to-face events will be possible again without restrictions. Therefore, the introduction of the new understanding of leadership must be done remotely. And this is one of the biggest challenges, as we’ve learned the hard way: employees receive so much information through so many channels that most of it gets lost in nirvana or it is consumed but not internalized.

The big question is: How to design a communication that really intrigues people to stay tuned?

• Trigger curiosity: «I like to watch and observe. What will happen next? How will it go on?»
• Involve: «I can vote and have a say in decisions. I can influence the course of things.»
• Excitement & fun: «There has never been anything like this in our company. Who will win?»
• Mirror neurons & applicability: «I automatically learn from the practice I’ve observed.»

Our solution: «a social broadcasting show»

What is a social broadcasting? Social broadcasting is the combination of social media and live broadcast.

We learn by watching others. We learn by imitating. We learn from role models. Watching others makes us curious. The idea of the rollout is simple: convey the new understanding through role models in a broadcasting show that is followed and discussed company-wide.

Here is how the schedule looks like:

The rollout takes place as a social broadcasting show we call “The Lead”.

• “The Lead” is a series with 5 episodes. Each episode reflects one dimension of the new way of leading. The best leadership performance will be determined in a competition.
• Both experienced leaders and individual contributors can take part. Anyone can participate (regardless of whether they are managers or employees). However, they always start in teams. Different teams compete with each other. This promotes the sharing of responsibility. The winning team will receive a prize.
• During the show, the teams are coached by a mentor and have to master a challenge for one of the five empowerment dimensions for each episode. Example 1 («Inspire to empower»): In this episode, the teams are challenged to develop a purpose pitch that convinces the mentors. Example 2 («Develop to empower»): In this episode, the teams have to facilitate a fuck-up night, in which they reflect on failures and what they have learned from it. After each challenge, the audience decides via a live voting which team has shown the best performance. Per episode, one board member acts as a guest mentor.
• After each episode, company-wide debriefing dialogues take place in which managers and their teams discuss the respective episode. This forms the starting point for OKR (objectives and key results) discussions. Leaders and their teams select tangible objectives how to implement the new way of leadership and agree on key results they plan to achieve.
• At the end of the rollout, the understanding of empowerment has become explicit and tangible, so that all employees can give their manager empowering feedback.

«We lead not by the example of our power, but by the power of our example.»

(Joe Biden)

Let the show begin!

• When applying, each team has the opportunity to convey its own understanding of empowerment. The presentation may use every conceivable content and shall be in the format of a YouTube clip.
• The five mentors are senior leaders and real role models from the company who embody the new understanding of leadership. They look through the clips and discuss them.
• Then they decide whether the respective team was so good that it should be coached by the mentor during the course of the “LEAD”. If the team has convinced several mentors, it can decide whom it wants as its mentor.

PUETTGEN Consulting

We are pioneers in (digital) transformation. Our work proves that virtual/ remote or hybrid formats are more than a band-aid. We enjoy guiding leaders and their teams to find new paths and to follow new paths. Our focus is on recognizing and developing existing potential.

How it all started

In fall 2008, we decided to found a consultancy specializing in organizational transformation and development. It was during a vacation in the Swiss Bergell. At the very same time, on the other side of the Atlantic, Lehmann Brothers just went bankrupt. What began as an American real estate bubble became a major global financial crisis. We remember exactly this very moment. Hiking through the chestnut forests near the village of Soglio, we asked ourselves: is this the right time to start such a business?

Twelve years later we know…

1. transformation issues have only become more relevant.
2. the human being -and thus also strategic personnel and organizational development- remains a key success factor.
3. there is not the one right time; it depends on what you make of it.