In my years of working with people, I’ve seen how the empowerment process involves a slow release of control but not abandonment. In helping people become stronger and more confident, there’s a process of walking with them. It’s not very honoring to have a role, a job, a title dumped in your lap, leaving you to figure it all out. On the contrary, it’s also not honoring to be micro-managed every step of the way. Neither one of those are empowering. Instead, I think it’s kind of like driving a manual. When you’re in first, if you don’t give it any gas or not enough, the car dies. If you give it too much, you lurch forward rather quickly. Neither are pleasant. Instead, you want to maintain a good tension of pressing down on the gas while easing your foot off the clutch. The right tension ensures a great result.
If you want to be empowering, you have to engage the tension and be willing to walk with people and then let go when the time is right.
