empowerment directions

Empowerment: Empowered, Collaborative, Directive

Aaron Fulkerson’s 70-20-10 rules (“Fulkerson: Live by the 70/20/10 rule”) addresses an area near and dear to my heart, and a topic that was my very first blog – leadership and management. He specifically looks at the notion of empowerment. I had also examined a tiering of empowerment a while back in my post “Three Levels of Empowerment” which take a different direction to his, but I do like his take:

  • 70% Empowered – “Seventy percent of an individual’s (or leader’s) job should be empowered and free from oversight. There should be activities and decisions being made every day their supervisor isn’t even aware of, let alone involved in. Seventy percent is the ideal autonomous ratio.”
  • 20% Collaborative – “Twenty percent of that same individual’s professional contribution should be made in a collaborative way with their supervisor. A true partnership – mulling over dynamics together and reaching mutual agreement.”
  • 10% Directive – “Ten percent should be received via top-down directives.”

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