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.

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