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What Is Meant by the Term Empowerment? Does Empowering a Subordinate Necessarily Mean That the Person Granting Power Is Losing Power? Can an Act of Empowerment Increase a Manager or Leader's Power?

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What Is Meant by the Term Empowerment? Does Empowering a Subordinate Necessarily Mean That the Person Granting Power Is Losing Power? Can an Act of Empowerment Increase a Manager or Leader's Power?
WHAT IS MEANT BY THE TERM EMPOWERMENT? DOES EMPOWERING A SUBORDINATE NECESSARILY MEAN THAT THE PERSON GRANTING POWER IS LOSING POWER? CAN AN ACT OF EMPOWERMENT INCREASE A MANAGER OR LEADER’S POWER?

CONTENTS

1.0 OVERVIEW OF THE ASSIGNMENT 1

1.1 Background 1

1.2 Scope of Discussion 2

1.3 Objectives 2

2.0 EMPOWERMENT IN THE BUSINESS ORGANIZATION 3

2.1 Understanding Empowerment 3

2.2 Steps of Empowerment in the Organization 5

3.0 DOES EMPOWERING A SUBORDINATE LEADS TO THE LOSING OF POWER OF THE PERSON GRANTING THE EMPOWERING POWER? 7

4.0 CAN AN ACT OF EMPOWERMENT LEADS TO INCREASE MANAGER OR LEADER’S CONTROL? 10

5.0 CONCLUSION 12

BIBLIOGRAPHY 14

OVERVIEW OF THE ASSIGNMENT

1 Background

Nihan and Nilay (2006) stated that total quality management concept or TQM has narrowed down the managers’ functions about decision making and controlling and emphasizing more on their functions as coach and mentor. In line with this needs, Nihan and Nilay (2006) also cited that the changeable new environment conditions require fitting to the new market conditions. Due to these reasons, empowerment was born as a concept of increased personnel participation in the organization.

Empowerment is a concept that was popularly cited in the 1990s along with the increasing acceptance of team work as a means of getting job done in the organization. There have been many critics about empowerment: some saying that it is just a jargon created to term the increasing participation of employees in decision making while others felt that this is a new approach in TQM to increase productivity in the organization.

2 Scope of Discussion

This assignment describes what empowerment is in the context of business organizations, mainly focusing on personnel empowerment and addressing the issues of whether empowerment causes loss or gain of power on the part of the manager or leader of the organization.



Bibliography: Carr, C. (1992). Team power: Lessons from America 's Top Companies on Putting Team power to Work. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Holt, G. D. (2000). Constructing empowerment: people, processes, participation and profit, 1st International Conference on Systems Thinking in Management. Website: http://ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/Publications/CEUR-WS/Vol-72/037%20Holt%20Empowerment.pdf (accessed on 25th July 2008) Holt, G. D., Love, P. E. D. and Li, H. (2000). The learning organization: Towards a paradigm for mutually beneficial strategic construction alliances. The International Journal of Project Management. Oxford: Elsevier Science Ltd. Vol. 18. No. 6, ISSN: 0263-7863 Loretta, D. and Polsky, W. (1991). Share the power, Personnel Journal, September, p.116 Manz, C. C. and Sims, H. P. Jr., (1990). Super-Leadership New York: Berkley Books, Nesam, L. J. and Holt, G. D. (1999). Empowerment in construction: the way forward in construction contractor organizations, Research Studies Press Ltd, Hertfordshire, UK, ISBN: 0-86380-245-1 Nihan. C.D. and Nilay, G. S. (2006). Personnel empowerment in human resources management, Yildiz Technical University, Mechanical Faculty, Department of Industrial Engineering, Besiktas-Instanbul, Turkey, Website: http://www.ims.sakarya.edu.tr/ims2006papers/IMS2006-069.doc. (assessed on 25 July 2008) Page, N. (1999). Empowerment: What is it? Journal of Extension, October 1999, Volume 37, Number 5. Uyargil, C., (2003). Coaching, Lecture notes, Istanbul University, Faculty of Business Administration

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