Managers are often given advice that combines research-based
buzzwords with fundamental misunderstandings. Empowerment is a good example.
The word contains “power,” and advice is usually given to those who feel a need
to improve, so it was perhaps inevitable that empowerment should be associated
with ideas of individuals becoming or feeling empowered through some action of
their own, such as attending a course or a coaching session on how to become
empowered. That’s not what empowerment means or how it works: people are
empowered when someone else gives them power and authority to make their own
decisions.
The distinction is important because if empowerment improves
organizations, then we should start by looking at the person who empowers
others. That’s exactly what was done in research published in Administrative Science Quarterly by Amy Ou and collaborators. They looked at how a CEO’s
humility could empower others in the firm. Their central insight is simple and
powerful: a CEO’s humility makes it easier for the top management team to work
together, because each feels empowered and comfortable, and that effect on the
top management team cascades down the organization.
They found that the humble CEO is the opposite of the showy
CEO in two key ways. First, the humble CEO does not dominate but instead is
understated and makes it easier for the closest executives to stand up and
perform. For example, the humble CEO does not make public performances and
speeches to the whole organization but instead lets the empowerment of the
closest executives cascade down. Second, humble CEOs encourage communication to
give shared understanding, which in turn lets subordinates feel motivated and
confident about their decisions and helps their managers trust their judgment
and commitment. This cascading down of shared understanding and trust can bring
whole organizations together more effectively than inspirational speeches by
showy CEOs.
There is much about that research that appeals to us,
because most of us share the suspicion that showy, self-promoting, narcissist
CEOs must be flawed in some way. Yet such CEOs are very common, and part of the
reason is that it is easier to imagine people who make a big impression also
having big effects on the firms they lead. Humility is such a low-key behavior
and such (what else can I say?) humble thinking that it is hard to imagine it
having a big effect. But it does. How?
The keyword is empowerment.
Humble CEOs empower their top management teams. Empowered top management
teams create an organizational climate that empowers workers all the way down.
A top management team that has been empowered and in turn empowers others
creates norms that are so strong that it is hard to be an authoritarian
manager. That’s how humility has big effects on organizations: it creates an
expanding circle of empowerment.
