Maxwell Leadership Podcast: Three Indicators of an Empowering Leader

Mark Cole:
Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. This is the podcast that adds value to leaders who multiply value to others. My name is Mark Cole, and on this week’s episode, John Maxwell is sharing a lesson on what an empowering leader looks like, what they smell like, what they taste like, how we interact with one another. And we’re gonna let you know, we’re gonna discover together if you’re a leader that empowers the people that you lead. Now, after John’s lesson, I’ll be back to walk through with you what he has taught us. And I wanna help you apply what you’ve learned to your life and to your leadership. If you would like to download the free bonus resource for this episode or watch it on YouTube, go to MaxwellPodcast.com/Empower. Now get ready.

Mark Cole:
Here is John Maxwell.

John Maxwell:
We need a willingness to empower people. I began to think about this because I think empowerment is difficult for a lot of people. So in doing this lesson, I just wrote down cause of time three empowerment indicators. Let me give them to you. How do you know that you are an empowering leader? I’m gonna give you three ways that you can know that you are. One, the only decisions you make are the decisions only you can make. Hmm, that’s very insightful. You see, decisions should be made at the lowest level possible in the organization, not the highest level possible in the organization.

John Maxwell:
If you’re making all the decisions, you’re not an empowering leader. And so you begin to share those decisions with others. Another empowerment indicator is that team members are always creating ideas and opportunities. In other words, you’re not the only one that’s creating the opportunities. I run into leaders sometimes say, boy, if I don’t make it happen, nothing happens. Can I tell you something? If you’re one of those people that it only happens if you make it happen, you’re not an empowering leader. Your people ought to have that authority to create, make mistakes, and try again. Thirdly, trust is the foundation of an empowering leader.

John Maxwell:
An empowering leader trusts his or her people. And again, I run to people that say, well, how can you know if you can trust your people? And I always smile. Cause that’s a simple question to answer. My name’s John. I’m your friend. It’s this simple. The best way to find out if you can trust a person is to trust a person. And what you’re going to discover by their actions is if they’re trustworthy or not.

John Maxwell:
And by the way, if you don’t trust someone, you you are either too controlling and haven’t given up that trust, or you’ve got the wrong person, which means you’ve got to make a change. You’ve got to either change from command and control to empowerment, or you got to change the person because they’re the wrong one. But I want to contrast empowerment, releasing people to reach their capacity and help the company reach its capacity. The opposite of empowerment is command and control. And I just want you to know that insecure people love command and control. Anybody that is insecure wants to have their hands on everything and control everything. And I just want you to know that if you’re a command and control person, there’s a limitation to the growth of your company. Always.

John Maxwell:
Not sometimes, always. Because it will only grow to the level that you can personally command and control. And the moment that you have to release that to someone else, you get a problem. So you can’t have constant, continual growth and command and control at the same time. You gotta make a decision. If I’m gonna have that constant, gonna have that constant growth, then I have to be an empowering leader. Leaders delegate task, but they don’t delegate authority. And let me just say this, it’s quite simple.

John Maxwell:
If you delegate task, you’ll never develop leaders. You’ll just develop followers. And I see it happen all the time, you know, because you give them a job to do, they go do it and they come back and you give them another job, and they do it and they come back, and then you give them another job. You’re just. All you’re doing is you’re developing a follower. They come back and go out, come back. To be honest with you, it’s like playing fetch with your dog. I mean, you get a ball and you throw the ball out.

John Maxwell:
The dog goes, runs after it, gets up, comes back, kids do throw it back out, Dog comes back, throw it back out, dog comes back. Most leaders, that’s how they run their business. They’re just delegating tasks and next and next, and they’re just busy delegating tasks, and all they got is a bunch of followers. You see, if you want to develop leaders, you got to delegate authority, and that’s how leaders get established.

Mark Cole:
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Mark Cole:
This quote by Simon Sinek kind of sets everything up for us for today’s podcast. He says leadership is about empowering others to achieve things they did not think possible. Don’t get it confused. Empowering is not about lightening your load. Empowering leadership is not about getting some to do items off of your back because you need to do the more important things. Empowerment really is about building the people around you. In other words, if you want to develop leaders, you have to delegate authority. In today’s lessons, I want to take these three indicators that John has given us on empowering leaders, and I want to give you some points that I have discovered in working alongside John Maxwell through many years.

Mark Cole:
Point number one that I want to share with you as we look at these indicators on whether you empower those around you, whether you’re in it for the empowerment of their benefit or you’re in it for the empowerment of your benefit. Point number one is the importance of how to empower in your leadership. See, empowerment is all about giving your people the power to make decisions and take action. When you empower your team, you’ll see increased motivation and productivity. I can remember the time that John began to empower me. In fact, one such time was when John empowered me to begin mobilizing the team to train leaders around the world and to empower them with values. It was that first moment where I went, oh, if it’s meant to be, it’s up to me. And John is not giving this to me because he don’t want it.

Mark Cole:
He’s given it to me because he believes I have within me the ability to make a difference. Now, today, millions of kids going through our values curriculum, literally tens of millions of adults going through transformational values tables, and I can look back now and I say, wow, there was something within me to create the team that could accomplish such great things. But I never want to lose the moment of how it felt when John had more belief in me than I had in myself. It was that moment that every leader begins to see in others the woman, the man that they’re going to empower. And say they have it within them to make a difference. So today, what I want you to do as you study the importance of empowering leadership, I want you to start by identifying areas where you can give your team more decision making power. Begin by communicating your expectations clearly and provide the necessary resources and support so that your team can accomplish everything that is within them. Ask yourself this question.

Mark Cole:
What decisions can I start empowering my team to make? Or how will you ensure they have the tools and information they need to succeed? Don’t forget, before we move on to point number two, don’t forget empowerment is about the potential in the team that you’re leading. It’s about the power of opportunity within the person that you’re developing. The second thing I want to leave with you is the willingness to empower people. Do a heart check. Are you willing to go through the process? The price tag of empowering people? See, empowerment requires a mindset shift and a willingness to let go of control. I know leaders, I know you’re shaking, you’re worried right now, but I’m going to tell you letting go of that control can be challenging. But the benefits are well worth it. I can remember a time where I was empowering somebody.

Mark Cole:
In fact, for the sake of keeping this person innocent until proven guilty, we’ll call him Jim. And I remember when I gave Jim a project, it was early on in my CEO role and I was so impressed with myself of giving up control. I didn’t realize that I was empowering Jim for my own benefit. In fact, I remember going back and telling John, I just empowered Jim and Jim’s going to do this and it’s going to be incredible. And I began to paint this picture only to find out two weeks later that Jim had completely dropped the ball. And I was mortified. I was mortified at having to go back and report to John that Jim had failed. When really, I’ll be honest with you, I should have been mortified that my report card on Jim’s performance to John Maxwell was more important than using it as an opportunity to share with Jim how he could get better.

Mark Cole:
See, oftentimes we empower for the sake of our own benefit, as I said earlier. But it’s for the sake of trying to impress others with our leadership at reproducing ourself that we don’t realize we’re really setting people up for failure. In fact, I will tell you this, the first time you empower someone, it’s not going to go well. So all of you that are saying, okay, John you help me with three indicators of empowering leader. And then, Mark, you’re telling me I’m going to fail. You’re going, okay, guys, get your act together. Well, John says you’re never good the first time, and empowerment is no different. You’re not going to be great the first time.

Mark Cole:
But the question is, again, are you empowering because of the individual? Are you empowering for your reputation? Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to reflect on your leadership style. I want you to identify areas where you may be holding onto control. You’re just holding on too tightly. And I want you to take one component of that. I want you to start small by delegating a task or a decision, and then gradually increase the level of empowerment with those around you. Oftentimes when we’re empowering people and we determine, okay, I’ve got to empower, I’ve got to do something. We over empower someone based on our own tolerance and control, comfort, or we over empower based on their developmental process and how far along they are in being ready.

Mark Cole:
We’ve got to empower people at a pace the person that we’re empowering can tolerate. So here’s the question for you. What’s holding you back from empowering your team? What is it that you are finding as a hesitant or as a hesitation to giving the people around you a chance? And then ask the question, what steps can you take to become more comfortable with letting go, with giving up that control? Point number three that I want to give you as we talk about these indicators of empowering leaders is what John shared earlier is trust is the foundation of empowerment. John made this quote in the notes, and I reflect back on that. He said, the best way to find out if you can trust a person is, is to trust the person. You know, we wait for someone to earn our trust before we give them trust, and that’s not the way leadership works. Trust is only worked when it is given first. Once you give that trust to the person, John goes on and says, you’re going to discover by their actions if they’re trustworthy or not.

Mark Cole:
Too often we wait for the actions to indicate trustworthiness rather than giving trust and letting the actions prove that they were trustworthy. See, trust is the bedrock of effective empowerment. You build trust by being vulnerable, by admitting mistakes, and by fostering a culture of openness. When John says that you give trust to prove trustworthy, he’s really saying, there is a chicken and an egg to this idea of trustworthiness. And it starts with the leader. It starts by making the decision, I’m going to trust you before you are proven to be trustworthy. There’s too many times and too many scenarios to where I can tell you that as a leader in a leadership organization, I waited for someone to prove their trust, their trustworthiness, before I gave them trust. And what happens in that setting is we begin to create an erode, a situation to where people don’t want empowerment.

Mark Cole:
We’re talking about empowerment here. We’re talking about trust being the foundation of empowerment. And if you’re not careful, you will not extend trust. Therefore, you will make the environment around you one that you won’t be able to impact and grow empowerment because there’s too much hesitation within the leader. So how do we overcome this? How do we begin to extend ourselves to build that trust on the front end? You’ve got to be transparent with your team. You got to share your challenges, you got to share your failures. You got to create a space for others to do the same. One of the things that I’m told often is my transparency.

Mark Cole:
My authenticity is very endearing. And I laugh and go, if you knew the price I paid to get to a place to where vulnerability is more important than perceived perfection, you would understand my vulnerability. I had to create a space for transparency. I had to become comfortable in my own skin. But the alternative to a lack of transparency is a world of posing. And a world of posing will not allow you to empower effectively. I want you to consistently follow through on your commitments and demonstrate your trust in your team’s abilities. How great and refreshing it is when Maxwell Leadership goes into a culture and there’s this instant understanding that trust has been built inside the organization, that empowerment is given and that accountability is enjoyed.

Mark Cole:
So how can you show vulnerability and build trust with your team? What actions can you take to create a culture of openness and a place to where people can psychologically feel safe? It takes that for us to go on to how we can create a culture of empowerment. Point number four is all about delegating authority. See, you’ve got to delegate authority, not just task. We often, again, we get into a place to where delegation is more of a discipline than empowerment. But to develop leaders, you’ve got to delegate authority. And not just responsibility or delegate empowered authority, not just positional authority or task authority. We often give our team the power to get something done, but not the power to make decisions on how it’s done. I remember a very vivid example of when I began to delegate.

Mark Cole:
I realized the importance and I began to challenge my team to get things done. But I would require them to report back to me. Not just that they got it done, but how they did it. Just recently, I was in a meeting with our leadership team and we were debriefing an experience that we had just a few weeks before. And as I began to ask them questions on what I had delegated to them and I said, hey, talk to me about what happened, what’s the results? And of course, I had already done my homework, I knew the results, I was ready with the results. And as they began to report, it became clear to them and to me that I knew the numbers in some cases better than they. I’ll never forget when one of our leaders looked at me and said, mark, do you want me to give a report on the numbers from my perspective or from your perspective? Because you seem to have already known the conclusion. I’ve got to tell you, I was arrested with that question, Mark.

Mark Cole:
Do you want the conclusions based on my interpretation of the numbers or based on yours? See, what I had done is I had delegated to this individual, this leader, the responsibility to get the job done, but I had not delegated how to get it done. And therefore, when they began to talk back to me on their report on their numbers, I began to correct them and adjust their thinking and get them to report off of it the way that I wanted the numbers to be read. True empowerment is giving authority, not just task responsibility. I believe that perhaps today you may need to do the same thing I had to do. I had to that day review my delegation practices and look for opportunities to give team members more decision making power. Two weeks later, I was in the same meeting with the same people and I asked a question. I said, hey, let me ask you a question. Do you feel like that you are empowered? And the leader said, yes, I am.

Mark Cole:
I said, do you feel like that you have liberty to get it done your way? And I’ll never forget, they looked back at me and said, finally, it’s now not only up to me to get it done, it’s up to me on how to get it done. What I discovered that day is something that may help you. When you empower, you’ve got to provide clear guidelines and parameters, but you’ve got to couple that guidelines, that parameters, that clarity, with a trust for them to get it done their way. So what tasks today can you delegate with authority, not just responsibility? How will, how will you support your team members as they take on more Decision making power. Just in doing this podcast today, I realized that it’s time for a follow up. It’s time for me to go back to the same team and ask them that question. What task have I assigned you that I have not given you authority on how you want to develop that and how you want to see that through. Which takes us to our fifth point today, and that is developing leaders through empowerment.

Mark Cole:
It’s one thing to delegate followers through empowerment, but when you begin to talk about reproducing leaders with the concept of empowerment, it goes back to what John said. The opposite of empowerment is command and control. Often leaders delegate this idea of results without the idea of authority. Empowerment is key to developing future leaders. Here at Maxwell Leadership, our leadership development program emphasizes empowerment and empowerment. Done well. I say it often, everyone deserves to be led well. I believe it’s also true.

Mark Cole:
Everyone deserves empowerment. Done well. We, as a leadership organization, we’ve got to have emerging leaders that will not be hesitant to take on assignments, but will be excited about assignments that will stretch them. See, by empowering the leaders around us and providing support, we not only will help them succeed, but we’ll help them discover the potential to lead within them. Today, my hope for you, and really, to be honest with you, my hope for myself, is that I’ll not only do a good job identifying potential leaders inside of my organization, but that I will cultivate them with empowerment. That I will extend to them opportunity by giving them the empowerment needed to grow into their potential, not demonstrate their potential. Way too often I’ve said this a time or two in this lesson. Way too often we wait until somebody can accomplish the task rather than give them the empowerment to develop into the task.

Mark Cole:
I can remember when I promoted my first leader. This was some 15 to 18 years ago in John’s organization. And I had the opportunity to develop one of the people on my team into a leadership role. And my then leaders looked at me and said, I think that you’re looking at them incorrectly. I don’t think that person can do it. And I looked back at this leader and I said, did you think I could do it when you assigned me leadership responsibility? And the leader kind of stopped for a moment, smiled and said, okay, promote the person, give them empowerment. See, I made my point. None of us, not me, from the stock room to the corner office, none of us exhibit the effectiveness of our leadership at first.

Mark Cole:
It’s because somebody somewhere at some point believed in us, saw something in us, and empowered us to our potential, not empowered us to our Productivity, they didn’t say, oh, you’ve done it now let me give that to you. That’s rewarding somebody for a job well done. On yesterday’s assignment. Today’s lesson is all about indications of how to empower a leader with potential. So today, identify potential leaders within your team and give them opportunities to take on new challenges. Don’t forget, you’ve got to provide mentorship, you’ve got to give them training, you’ve got to offer resources to support their growth. And when you do, the reward, the sense of fulfillment, of empowering a leader that grows into potential is something that’s very hard to describe, but it’s great to experience. So who are the emerging leaders on your team? What stretch assignments or leadership opportunities can you provide them to foster their growth and to reach their potential? You and I, on this quest of developing leaders and to challenge others to become better, we’ve got to realize something and that is the world needs high road leaders.

Mark Cole:
The world needs you and I to become more effective in leading others for what we see in them rather than for what we see they can do for us. Today I want to offer you a resource just kind of as the next step. And it’s the digital product High Road Leadership. We’ll put it in the show notes. I want you to just check it out if you’ve. You maybe you’ve read the book, but the digital product of John teaching this on how to become a high road leader is pertinent to today’s lesson on how to empower leaders effectively. There’s two podcasts that I think will kind of direct and expand your thinking in. This one is the best thing you can do for yourself and others.

Mark Cole:
It’s a podcast we did some time ago. We’ll put those that link in the show notes. The second one is a podcast that I was reminded of from Dave. Dave listened to the podcast how to be a Real Success. By the way, there’s part one and part two for that. But it was after Dave listened to this that Dave, thank you for your kind comments. But Dave said, mark, I would like to say thank you for the work that you guys do on this podcast. Your team is effective, your humility, your authenticity shows through.

Mark Cole:
And by the way, Dave, he said thank you for thinking things possible on the lowest shelf for all the people. Dave, you give me that as a compliment. That’s what I got, bud. It’s just the cookies on the lower shelf. That’s me. But Dave, thank you for your last statement because you said, I really can’t say enough of how much I am learning through your podcast. And Dave, that is why we do this podcast. That’s why today I’m challenging you to empower the leaders around you, because everyone deserves to be led.

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