The Empowering Leader: practical insights for high-performance leaders

Leadership is not so much about what you do and achieve on your own but it is about what you are able to help others accomplish. If you are going to improve as a leader it is important that you assess your ability to inspire other people to elevate their level of performance to new and better heights and contribute more than they previously thought possible. There are leaders who impose external control on their followers and view their own ends as more important than those of others, and see others as objects who are either desirable because they are instrumental in helping them gain what they want, or interfere with what they want. Although these leaders are able to get results in the short-run, they do so at a high price. At best their tactics result in unthinking followers who learn to keep their heads down and do the minimum possible to avoid getting into trouble. At worst these leaders create an environment of smoldering ill-will or even malicious compliance.

Some leaders, on the other hand, are different, and they care about the needs and interests of their followers as well as their own. These types of leaders create an environment that elicits motivation and commitment. They also view people as capable human beings with their own needs, feelings and opinions. These unique leaders seek mutually beneficial goals and raise their followers to higher levels of motivation, behaviour and even morality. Furthermore, they judge their effectiveness not by their press clippings but by actual social change or the makeover of individual and organisational attitudes and behaviour.

This book intends to help you become this kind of leader.