By definition, employee empowerment is giving your staff the freedom to make decisions without the authority of a manager, after they have received proper training. Make no mistake, giving up responsibility to employees because you’re too busy, too lazy, or too important to do it yourself isn’t empowering—that’s what we call dumping.

While true employee empowerment carries many valuable benefits, few leaders use it as a means to raise the bar and drive excellence within their team. So why don’t managers empower their employees? Well, there are four fundamental reasons:

they are too busy. Too often, managers are so involved in “doing the job”who lose sight of the fact that they may very well have a team of talented employees who can perform those tasks with just a little training and direction – freeing him to be the visionary leader he was hired to be.

They think it takes too long.Many managers feel that in the time it takes to train an employee on a new task, they could have done very well themselves. Unfortunately, this is short thinking because your employees “never learn to fish” in this way, and they must continually interrupt them for petty matters that they should be able to solve on their own.

They think it’s too risky. Some managers fear that their employees will make costly mistakes; in essence, these managers are unwilling and afraid to take the risk. They don’t want to suffer the consequences of a poorly executed decision, even if it is a valuable learning experience for the employee.

They are secretly bullied.. Some managers question, “What if the employee makes a decision that makes him seem smarter than me?” These types of managers don’t want to wake up any movers and shakers within the department; therefore, mediocre or marginal performance from employees is okay, and it’s the most they get out of the team.

So if you’ve noticed that your boss rarely empowers you to make decisions or delegates challenging tasks to you, there may be an underlying reason. On the other hand, if you’re the boss who rarely empowers staff to handle routine problems within the department, you might identify with our top four reasons above.

In short, creating and maintaining a culture of excellence cannot be accomplished without fully engaged employees who feel they are part of the organization and who are truly valuable contributors to the organization’s success. For training tips and strategies on how to properly empower your team, delegate new tasks effectively, and win back your valuable time, check out some best practices posted on my website.