Empowerment

I’m thinking a lot about empowerment today because I have failed in my current workplace.  I have two weeks left, and I’m having an even harder time going back there every weekday. But it isn’t because of my two bosses – one of them resigned and the other is out of town all month except for three days.  It’s because of my management responsibilities.

I only manage one person, and we do not get along.  Well, truth be told, we either get along famously or we can’t stand each other.  All the talk about personality tests on this blog recently was brought on by the two of us having to take it to figure out our problems.  She is an INFP, and I am an ENFP.  Seems pretty similar, but it is not at all.  I am direct with information and work hard to be more of a mentor than a boss, she takes every ounce of criticism personally, even when I don’t mean it as a criticism, and she finds me to be abrasive.

It is EXHAUSTING to work through these issues. I was thinking through it today after ANOTHER round of mediation in which she has accused me of not giving her enough direction even though TOGETHER we wrote out our priorities for the month…but because I didn’t put a specific deadline, she hasn’t done any of them.  Isn’t this a priority list FOR THE MONTH?  And the month is half over, n’est ce pas?  So…what kind of deadline did I need to put?  It needs to be done at the end of the month!

Blerg.  Anyway, it got me thinking about the idea of empowerment.  This person does not have a college degree, but has been working on a bachelor’s degree for a very long time.  We are only one year apart in age.  She does not have a lot of leverage in terms of education or years of experience to advance very far in any career at this stage.  I’ve been trying to give her enough guidance to be able to make decisions and grow into the position, but intentionally not micro-managing so that she can make decisions on her own.  In my mind, all of this has been toward the purpose of empowering her.  It occurred to me today that the word empowerment – a word straight out of feminist and civil rights movements that I fiercely believe in -- might be problematic. 

Empowering means to give power or to authorize power to those who are powerless.  My understanding of empowerment is related to involvement – having people involved in decisions that impact them.  I’ve done this with my employee by having her set the goals with me, working together to determine strategy and offering overarching deadlines rather than task-related deadlines.  But it doesn’t seem to have empowered her to be more involved in thinking on a more strategic level OR in completing her work.  Is empowerment only empowering if someone WANTS power over their own decisions?  And who doesn't want that?   

I don’t know, but I will say that I feel totally defeated and not at all empowered.  Two.  More.  Weeks.  That freedom to leave this job is empowering.