From the MEA CEO: Empowerment is the answer to Heather Small’s question

By Peter McDonald, MEA CEO

Empower: to make (someone) stronger and more confident, especially in controlling their life and claiming their rights.

What a word. What a concept. And what a gift – whether given or received.

It’s also something that can be self-bestowed or imparted on others.

As our industry seeks to replenish and rebuild its workforce, I suggest that adoption of the concept of empowerment might better insulate its retention rate into the future.

Employee empowerment is a management philosophy, one cultivated with intention and not by accident.

It provides new opportunities to team members to develop and stretch beyond their current capabilities and acquire new skills. It helps in increasing their motivation level, creates new opportunities to develop their leadership skills and satisfy their self-actualisation needs. Empowered employees have increased self-confidence, are keen to develop their own skills, and to find ways to make use of those skills to the company's benefit.

It brings a sense of ownership to the employee. They personalise the goals and objectives of the organisation and associate its success with their own contribution.

An empowered team is advantageous to a business. Empowered workers are more engaged and motivated to do their job. Empowerment facilitates creativity and increases job satisfaction. By default, staff turnover reduces, and talent attraction prospects improve. Customer service is more genuine and qualitative.

So how does a business leader empower? They seek employee input and involve them in decision making. They create foundations of autonomy and trust, and avail learning resources and upskilling and reskilling opportunities. They make the sharing – both giving and receiving – of constructive feedback cultural, recognise and reward, and ensure an outcome in a search for purpose is findable.

It’s of course not just as easy as one day saying ‘Right, you’re all now empowered. Go forth and prosper’. Implementing any organisational change needs to be done in a measured fashion. Provide enough rope, but not so much as to let anyone hang. Implement change at a pace that is sustainable in the long term.

Self-empowerment allows us to take responsibility for our own happiness. We can’t rely on others to make us happy. Ultimately our happiness is in our own hands. At the end of the day, we always have choice – but that’s not to say that our choice options are always easy. They sometimes may require braveness and facing fears and doubts.

This week we announced our Evolve and National Awards Dinner MCs. Olympic Champion Brooke Hanson will steer the conference, and Luke Hannan will compere the dinner. They’re 2 great examples of self-empowered people.

Brooke has navigated her post-elite athlete life to our industry and is a highly accomplished professional speaker nowadays. Indeed, she’ll also be delivering a keynote session “Empower – Inspire – Transform” at the conference. Similarly, Luke has taken ownership of his own destiny by very recently departing the corporate sector to turn his passion for the lectern from a part time interest to fulltime work.

Empowerment fosters pride. One of my favourite songs of all time is Heather Small’s Proud. I find its lyrics inspiring:

I step out of the ordinary
I can feel my soul ascending
I'm on my way, can't stop me now
And you can do the same, yeah

What have you done today to make you feel proud?
It's never too late to try
What have you done today to make you feel proud?
You could be so many people
If you make that break for freedom
What have you done today to make you feel proud?

If you want to learn more about making yourself feel proud and empowerment – that being one of the three education pillars of Evolve 2023 – you can book your Evolve ticket here.

Source: Song – “Proud”
Artist – Heather Small
Album – “Proud”