Saturday, March 13, 2010

Self-empowerment for the follower

Empowerment can be defined as increasing the strength of individuals. Therefore, self-empowerment means to increase the strength of self. By increasing your personal strength you begin to develop personal pride, personal power and personal self-respect. These three personal characteristics are important for the non-leader. Personal pride is the satisfaction you find in your abilities and capabilities. It is the self-importance you place in yourself and directly affects your self-esteem. Personal pride is very important for the non-leader and it is a major factor for self-empowerment. Once you start to exhibit pride in your self and your work you show others around you that you are a leader.

Personal power stems from the act of self-empowerment. When you increase your strength your mind becomes clear and you become goal oriented. Now it is a know fact that the more you empower yourself and believe in yourself the more you start to achieve success. Those who are successful had high levels of self-empowerment because the pushed themselves to become successful. These are the true leaders those that possess the ability to empower ones self. Personal power can be attained as soon as you start to exhibit pride and belief in yourself. Your personal power will allow you to achieve anything you set out to do. Those who have the ability empower themselves are highly effective leaders and they are able to reach their goals. Personal self-respect is a simple concept. Self-respect is your confidence combined with self-worth. A final piece to self-empowerment and increasing your strength is self-respect. Having respect of ones self allows you to make things happen in the workplace. The more others see that you hold yourself to high standards the more they will look at you as a leader. Personal self-respect is an essential part of your self-empowerment for the follower.

Self-empowerment also requires you to take the necessary steps towards accepting new tasks in the workplace. By increasing your personal strength there is no task to tough or no project to difficult that you can’t complete. Now, you should understand why inspiring others is important. As a leader, inspiring others can lead to remarkable results in the workplace. Your level of self-empowerment directly affects who and how much you inspire those around you. Earlier in this chapter we discussed being an inspiration to others. The steps listed in order to become an inspiration to others are only a part of the inspiration process. Your level of self-empowerment or personal strength will also determine your ability to inspire people in the workplace. Inspiring and empowering yourself work together.

This model demonstrates the mutual relationship between self-empowerment, personal pride, personal power and personal self-respect. Each of the three personal characteristics has an indirect relationship with each other but a direct relationship to self-empowerment. Self-empowerment develops personal pride, power and self-respect. For leaders in the workplace, examining your level of empowerment daily is vital to effective leadership. Also, understanding the direct relationships shown in the above diagram will create a clear picture of your level of leadership qualities. You should review this diagram weekly and create a plan of action in your journal regarding your self-empowerment and the three personal characteristics and how you have used them in the workplace.