Team empowerment refers to capacity building where the employees will be able to make their own decisions without approval or supervision from the management. Team empowerment plays a crucial role in enabling each team member to have a voice in the group during decision making. This will, therefore, ensure that the decisions of all team members are taken into consideration in problem solving as well as decision making in the organization. This will also enable an organization to have a flat hierarchy of employees with a high proportion of the educated and trusted employees (Bojeun, 2013).
The four dimensions of team empowerment includes: autonomy, meaningfulness, potency and impact. Potency refers to the belief of the team that it can achieve their goals together which further boost the performance of the group as well as effectiveness of the team. This will also enable members of the team to have an attitude that they can do all tasks together as a group. The can-do attitude is very instrumental in ensuring that the performance and efficiency of employees is improved. This dimension also shows how much the employees believe in their own work and performance.
Meaningfulness, on the other hand, shows how the team members regard the tasks as valuable, important and worthwhile. The members influence the nature or concept of meaningfulness through communication. The extent to which the employees care about the performance and results of the organization helps them in attaining the rewards related to the performance of the company Optimism of the team members boosts the meaningfulness among the team members (Rosenbach, 2012).
Autonomy refers to the freedom of the team members in doing or performing the tasks and activities among the team members. This enables sharing of the task of decision making in the team. This also shows the independence of the team members in performing their roles and tasks in the organization. The levels and extent of discretion enables the team members to participate fully in the decision making process as well as problem solving in the organization. It is clear that the team members with high levels of autonomy and work with less supervision tend to have higher levels of effectiveness.
The fourth dimension is the impact which is the product of the external forces of the organization. Impact influence the nature of proposals to be carried out by the organization. The impact of the team is often seen outside the team in an organization. The team with a positive impact on other operations of the company will lead to higher levels of effectiveness and productivity.
Organizational hierarchy has a negative effect on team empowerment. This is due to the fact the top or higher level management gives directions or instructions to the employees. The employees at the bottom of the organization will not be able to participate in decision making or problem solving. The organizational hierarchy is also associated with pressure on the lower level managers and employees. The employees may feel as not part of the organization. The morale and satisfaction of employees will go down leading to poor performance of the organization. This, therefore, makes the team empowerment weak (Bolden, 2011).This will also slow the flow of information among various departments of the organization resulting in poor performance. This problem can be solved through team empowerment since it helps to facilitate smooth flow of information in the organization leading higher levels of performance.
References
Bojeun, M. C. (2013). Program management leadership: Creating successful team dynamics.
Bolden, R. (2011). Exploring leadership: Individual, organizational, and societal perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rosenbach, W. E., Taylor, R. L., & Youndt, M. A. (2012). Contemporary issues in leadership. Boulder, Colo: Westview Press.
