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and the private sector. Although there is no single institutional model for empowerment, experience shows that
certain elements are almost always present when empowerment efforts are successful. The four key elements of
empowerment that must underlie institutional reform are:
• Access to information
• Inclusion and participation
• Accountability
• Local organizational capacity
While these four elements are discussed separately, they are closely intertwined and act in synergy. Even where
there are strong local organizations, they may still be disconnected from local governments and the private sector,
and lack access to information. Ciulla (2004), discusses an inverse case: that of bogus empowerment.
Blanchard K. et all (1996), illustrate three keys that organizations can use to open the knowledge, experience, and
motivation power that people already have. The three keys that managers must use to empower their employees are:
a) Share information with everyone
b) Create autonomy through boundaries
c) Replace the old hierarchy with self-managed teams
Stewart (1994), describes that in order to guarantee a successful work environment, managers need to exercise the
“right kind of authority”. To summarize, “empowerment is simply the effective use of a manager’s authority”, and
subsequently, it is a productive way to maximize all-around performance and work efficiency.
These keys are hard to put into place and it is a journey to achieve empowerment in a workplace. It is important to
train employees and make sure they have trust in what empowerment will bring to a company.
The process of which enables individuals/groups to fully access personal or collective power, authority and influ-
ence, and to employ that strength when engaging with other people, institutions or society. In other words,
“Empowerment is not giving people only power, people already have plenty of power, in the wealth of their
knowledge and motivation, to do their jobs magnificently. We define empowerment as letting this power out.”
It encourages people to gain the skills and knowledge that will allow them to overcome obstacles in life or work
environment and ultimately, help them develop within themselves or in the society.
Empowerment can be seen as a multi-dimensional social process that helps people gain control over their own
lives. It is a process that fosters power in people for use in their own lives, their communities, and in their society
by acting on issues that they define as important. we strive to teach people skills and knowledge that will motivate
them to take steps to improve their own lives.
5. Workplace Empowerment
Empowered people in the workplace have freedom of choice and action. This in turn enables them to better influ-
ence the course of their decisions and actions which affect them.
A research by Spreitzer (1995) begins to develop and validate a multidimensional measure of psychological
empowerment in the workplace. Second-order confirmatory factor analyses were conducted with two comple-
mentary samples to demonstrate the convergent and discriminant validity of four dimensions of empowerment
and their contributions to an overall construct of psychological empowerment. Structural equations modeling
was used to examine a nomological network of psychological empowerment in the workplace. Tested hypotheses
concerned key antecedents and consequences of the construct. Initial support for the construct validity of psycho-
logical empowerment was found.
Thomas &Welthouse (1990) present a cognitive model of empowerment in which it is defined as increased intrin-
sic task motivation, and the subsequent model identifies four cognitions (task assessments) as the basis for worker
empowerment: sense of impact, competence, meaningfulness, and choice.