Empowering practices
While looking at practices considered empowering, a certain leadership quality is to establish a conducive atmosphere for open and constructive discussion among team members.
Another important quality for leaders is to postpone individual judgment and solutions. To delegate one’s responsibility to the team for an open discussion is also important (Bunders, et al. 2021).
Self-determination
“Autonomy is significant in the dimension of self-determination. Autonomy is the extent to which employees have the latitude to make empowering decisions, and leaders support this by providing a constructive atmosphere.” (Bunders, et al. 2021).
Another empowering practice has focused on instilling confidence by reorienting family managers to their accomplishments in dealing with complicated cases. The following example will show an illustration of this practice. A family manager asked the team if they needed a court order due to the fact the family had many problems. It seemed inevitable to not be able to move forward with the plan.
The team leader at that time asked the family manager to think about and reflect on what she had accomplished already, instead of thinking about the court order. Because the team leader intervened, she assured the family manager of her competencies when the manager had lost her oversight of the situation. Thus, making it easier for her to regain her control and confidence to keep working with the family.
It is a good way of getting someone out of a downward spiral, but I do want to note that praise in itself is not necessarily productive and could even work counterproductive. To show someone what they have accomplished is never wrong to do and could indeed give more motivation. In my opinion, I don’t necessarily see it as a practice but more as a helpful step to accomplish better competence.
Competence
“It is important that leaders show that they have faith in the competencies and performance of their employees. Competences include the entirety of knowledge, abilities, skills, and attitudes that family managers require to work effectively.” (Regeer, et al. 2021)