One of the reasons I enjoy reading BusinessWeek magazine is the last page column by Jack and Suzy Welch, where I usually find an interesting perspective to consider in how I approach my leadership and management duties.  Their thoughts recently on worker empowerment (August 25, 2008) are offered here for your consideration:

• Empowerment is one of those concepts that gets surrounded by more hype than honesty.  Because of that, they offer three hard facts to clarify its use:
• In normal companies, empowerment is not doled out equally--it is earned.  Managers should give their employees leeway to experiment with big, new projects, but only after they knock several smaller ones out of the park.
• People who are empowered and then fail more than once don't become pariahs, they become damaged goods. 
  with every misstep, the empowerment glow fades and few companies continue to empower them. 
• The larger the company, the less likely empowerment will occur--the exact opposite of what it should be.  Large organizations tend to be risk-adverse and keep decisions close to the top, while startups and smaller ones embrace the philosophy as a means of survival.  How ironic since it would take a very big misstep to bring down an S&P leader.

An empowered workforce can help keep your organization on the cutting edge of product and service development, as well as in delivering outstanding customer satisfaction.  It should be used, but carefully.