Many executives still wind up making all the decisions themselves and shout down orders as if a deity placing demands atop a mountain.
many executives still wind up making all the decisions themselves and shout down orders as if a deity placing demands atop a mountain.
As the last Business Talk of 2021 and as Kenya rings in the New Year this weekend, make a firm resolution to practise empowering leadership in 2022 by sharing decision-making with your employees.
Managers across Kenya and around the world struggle with the right balance of employee involvement in company decision making.
Despite mountains of evidence since 2013 in research by social science luminaries such as Julia Hoch, Rosalie Hall, and Birgit Schyns along with dozens of Kenyan doctoral business students conducting often derivative dissertations on employee empowerment in strategic decisions, many executives still wind up making all the decisions themselves and shout down orders as if a deity placing demands atop a mountain.
PROCRASTINATING BOSS
Next, we notice the perfectionist. A perfectionist-style boss fears to delegate tasks or even decisions because he or she feels that others do not possess the appropriate ability. A boss who fears everyone else’s work quality then proceeds to hold all decisions unto themselves. Such executives fail to recognise when work is good enough instead of perfect.
Then many of us experience an overwhelmed boss from time to time on our career paths.
Such managers get so overwhelmed with solving crises and accomplishing duties that they never spend time constructively and strategically solving problems by fixing the underlying problems and processes that lead to organisational crises in the first place.
So, when decisions require action, they hurriedly just conclude the decision themselves haphazardly so as to refocus their other misguided priorities.
Finally, we see the procrastinator boss who fears decisions and the subsequent aftermaths. Procrastinating managers attempt to avoid making the decision altogether and do not involve employees. Some researchers call these types of executives as laissez-faire leaders.
Each of the above four bad management styles result in significant employee dissatisfaction. Organisation development consultants in East Africa still find a staggeringly high number of employees in firms who receive little to no information about their firm’s strategy and get no opportunities to give their opinions or involve in any decision making.
In contrast, some organisations operate under extreme employee involvement methods in decision-making whereby every strategic decision the company makes must result from a vote among the employees.
Not only do employees vote on decisions, but the results of voting must equal 100 per cent or else a firm does not change its course. So, every employee must agree with every decision or no strategy occurs. Does full and complete employee involvement interest you for your firm or does it seem too bureaucratic and cumbersome?
Which situation works best for your company? Low levels of employee involvement entail selective consultation. Employees provide information, but do not know the exact problem. In medium levels of employee involvement, employees offer recommendations in full consultation.
In the highest levels of employee involvement, staff hold complete decision-making powers over their teams or control over all company decisions. Which system of involvement could you realistically utilise in your entity?
Executives previously joked that at least their firm involves employees in decisions better than parastatals, so therefore their entity should perform better than average.
However, government ministries and parastatals have steadily improved their employee involvement levels over the past 10 years thanks in large part to the training and best practices shared by the Kenya School of Government.
So, private firms need better and more modern benchmarking rather than basing their decisions on assumptions.
Improving the employee involvement in decision making in your firm leads to better definition of organisational problems, improved number of quality solutions, and more likely to select the correct solution to problems.
Better solutions lead to higher profits. Or, in an NGO, higher goals achieved for beneficiaries with less wastage.
Do not utilise fake employee involvement. Many of us may know a company or NGO that just wants to “make staff feel heard” or feel involved in contributing to decisions, even though the actual impact of the employee involvement does not change the outcome of the corporate decision.
As a boss, you hold three different choices when involving your employees in decision making. First, do you involve them formally or informally? You may set the levels of employee involvement formally, or codified, in the company’s policies and processes through self-directed teams.
Alternatively, you could choose to involve staff informally through casual information exchanges. Inasmuch, a boss might ask for help only when he or she feels that they need assistance on a specific problem.
LEGAL REQUIREMENT
Second, you may involve employees only when statutory regulations require it as legally necessary.
European countries often require employee involvement in various situations, or here in Kenya union agreements with firms or the Government may legally require employee involvement.
Alternatively, a boss could choose to engage employee opinions and involvement voluntarily with no legal requirement.
Employees clearly appreciate voluntary engagement more as it demonstrates company benevolence.
Third, as a manager, you must decide whether to engage employees directly so that each employee becomes personally involved in decision making. On the other hand, you might encourage staff to elect representatives to decide for all employees.
In summary, in 2022, become an empowering boss. Understand the benefits of involving employees in decision making.
Discern which level of employee involvement and which method to provide the involvement. Remember that you hired your employees because at the point of employment, they represented the best and brightest you could find.
So now, use them to participate in decision making and reap the rewards of better performing organisation.
