Psychological Empowerment

We like environments in which we have some level of control. Search your feelings; you know it to be true.

Well, the workplace is no different. People who have influence (or at least believe they have influence) over the work environment tend to feel a level of empowerment.

For instance, Jason works at a software development company. His project manager, Anne, asks him to send her a daily report to keep her updated. One day, she calls him into her office and asks for feedback. Jason doesn’t have a big problem with her because, overall, she’s an all right boss. But he spends at least an hour a day preparing this report when he could be...developing software.

So he tells her that…in a nice way. She didn’t realize that the reports were costing so much productivity time, so she changes the frequency to once a week. Jason is now happy because he feels like he has some level of say over what goes on in the work unit. Anne is happy because she can squeeze 4 extra productivity hours out of Jason per week, and he’s thrilled about it. Win-win.