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Management & Leadership vocabulary · Delegation and Accountability

Empower

Meaning in management & leadership, with examples

/ɪmˈpaʊər/verbCore term

In management & leadership, empower means: To give people the authority, confidence and resources to make decisions and act on their own, instead of waiting for approval at every step.

In Turkish: yetkilendirmek, güçlendirmek, inisiyatif vermek

How it is used

A popular word in leadership talks, company values and job ads. Managers empower their teams or empower employees to do something. The noun is empowerment, and empowered describes people who feel trusted to decide.

Example sentences

  1. We want to empower our store managers to solve customer problems on the spot.

  2. People feel more empowered when they understand why a decision was made.

Common collocations

  • empower employees
  • empower the team
  • feel empowered
  • employee empowerment
  • delegateTo give part of your work, responsibility or decision-making power to someone else, usually a person in your team, while still checking that the result is achieved.
  • authorityThe official power or right to make decisions, give instructions and use resources, usually linked to a person's role in an organisation.
  • ownershipIn management, the attitude of treating a task or problem as your own and taking responsibility for getting it done, rather than waiting for someone else to act.
  • micromanageTo control every small detail of other people's work, checking constantly and making decisions for them instead of trusting them to do the job.
  • psychological safetyA shared belief within a team that people can speak up, ask questions, admit mistakes or disagree without being punished or embarrassed.

More terms: Delegation and Accountability

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