1.
TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL
STUDIESSector – 9, DwarkaInstitutional Area, New Delhi-75
Affiliated Institution of G.G.S.IP.U, Delhi
ORGANISATIONAL
BEHAVIOUR (OB)
BBA201
EMPOWERMENT
PINKI BHARDWAJ
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

2.
TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Sector – 9, DwarkaInstitutional Area, New Delhi-75
Empowerment is any process that provides greater autonomy
through the sharing of relevant information and the provision of
control over factors affecting job performance.
In a work organisation, empowerment is the process of enabling
employees to set their own work goals, make decisions, and solve
problems within their sphere of responsibility and authority.
The basic theme of empowerment has emerged from the
proponents of total quality management (TQM) which has gained
acceptance throughout the world.
EMPOWERMENT

3.
TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Sector – 9, DwarkaInstitutional Area, New Delhi-75
APPROACHES FOR
EMPOWERMENT
There are five approaches which has been suggested for empowerment:
1. Helping employees achieve job mastery- giving training, coaching
and guided experience that are required for initial success.
2. Allowing more control- giving employees discretion over job
performance and making them accountable for performance
outcomes.
3. Providing successful role models- allowing them to observe peers
who are performing successfully on the job.
4. Using social reinforcement and persuasion- giving praise,
encouragement, and verbal feedback to raise confidence.
5. Giving emotional support- reduction of stress and anxiety through
better role prescription, task assistance and personal care.

4.
TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Sector – 9, DwarkaInstitutional Area, New Delhi-75
CHARACTERISTICS OF
EMPOWERED ORGANISATION
Organisations with high level of empowerment usually have the
following characteristics:
1. Empowered organisations put emphasis on delegation,
decentralisation and diffusion of power and information.
2. Their organisational hierarchy is flat instead of series of levels
which command and control the one immediately beneath them.
3. They appoint fewer managers with wider responsibilities. The span
of management is well above twenty in which a manager’s role
shifts from controller to coach and mentor.
4. They set unstructured guidelines so the employees know their
decision- making parameters.
5. Their employee-related core value is employee satisfaction.
6. They invest lot of time and effort to ensure that newly recruited
employees are able to handle workplace freedom.

5.
TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Sector – 9, DwarkaInstitutional Area, New Delhi-75
EMPOWERMENT PROCESS
Empowerment is a complex process because of involvement of human
beings whose nature itself is quite complex. Being a process,
empowerment involves a number of stages, these stages are:
1.Recalling Depowering and Empowering Experiences:
Empowerment evolves over the period of time with experience,
therefore there is a need for recalling events that show depowering as
well as empowering. While events showing empowering are reinforced,
events showing depowering need change through empowerment.
2.Discussing Reasons for Depowerment: After identifying the events
that show depowerment, it is required to identify the reasons for
depowement. Often , the reasons for depowerment lie either in
organisational processes or in an employee himself.

6.
TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Sector – 9, DwarkaInstitutional Area, New Delhi-75
EMPOWERMENT PROCESS
3. Choosing One Issue/ Problem/ Project to Work on: After
identifying the reasons of depowerment, concrete steps have to be
taken for overcoming depowerment. At this stage, it is quite possible
that there may be several areas in which depowering events happen.
Therefore, it is desirable to undertake one issue/problem/project at a
time. The best strategy to select an issue is to select that issue first
which is easier to tackle. The basic advantage of this strategy is that
the organisation gets experience of empowerment action which can
be applied in critical issues more effectively.
4. Identifying Potential power Bases: at this stage potential power
bases should be identified. Since power is a capacity to influence
others, it can be acquired by an individual in different ways, known
as power bases. Power bases may be of two types- positional and

7.
TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Sector – 9, DwarkaInstitutional Area, New Delhi-75
EMPOWERMENT PROCESS
personal with each type having different bases. Positional power
emerges from the position one holds in an organisation, it may be of
four types: legitimate, reward, coercive and information. Personal
power emerges from one’s qualities that are unique, it may be of
three types: expert, reference and charismatic.
5. Developing and Implementing Action Plans: after identifying
potential power bases, the organisation should initiate development
and implementation of action plans for empowerment.
Empowerment exercise can be undertaken either on individual basis
or team basis. Since there are both individual and organisational
bases of power, changes may be required at both these levels.

8.
TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Sector – 9, DwarkaInstitutional Area, New Delhi-75
BENEFITS OF EMPOWERMENT
Empowerment can be treated as casual variable which affects employee
perception of empowerment as intervening variable, which in turn affects
job performance as end result variable.
Empowerment affects employees in the form of developing self
confidence, attaching high value to job, and increased use of their talent.
All these result in better performance in terms of faster responses, loyal
customers, better quality, lower costs and greater productivity. Thus ,
empowerment benefits both employees and organisation.

9.
TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Sector – 9, DwarkaInstitutional Area, New Delhi-75
BARRIERS TO EMPOWERMENT
In an organisation, there are many factors which work against proper
empowerment, these are:
1. Incongruent Organisational Culture: If the organisational culture has
been developed on authoritarian concept, it works as impediment for
effective empowerment.
2. Tight Control Systems: In many organisations, control systems are
designed on the premise that “ people cannot be relied upon even in tiny
matters”. Such control systems work against the creativity of organisational
personnel as well as empowerment.
3. Inadequate Delegation of Authority: Superior managers do not delegate
adequate authority to their subordinates. The reason for inadequate
delegation of authority may be superiors’ love for authority, fears of
subordinates, fear of exposure of faulty working, negative attitudes
towards subordinates and authoritative nature of superiors.

10.
TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Sector – 9, DwarkaInstitutional Area, New Delhi-75
MAKING EMPOWERMENT
EFFECTIVE
Thomas and Velthouse have identified four factors in a job which are
intrinsically motivating. These are:
1. Impact: when an employee feels that the completion of task will
make a difference , such a task has impact on his performance.
2. Competence: when the employee has the ability, skills, and
knowledge to perform a task, he feels the sense of competence.
3. Meaningfulness: when the employee feels that the task assigned to
him is worthwhile, he develops a sense of meaningfulness in the job.
4. Choice: when the employees feels that he has freedom to make
decisions and initiate actions, he experiences the sense of choice.