Power Encounters versus Empowerment of Others.

Greatness serves selflessly, it gives, it suffers, and it endures without fear or

taking into account of the cost to self. Greatness seeks to restore and to
reconcile risking involvement and making a stand for greater of the whole.
Greatness strives to end immorality and injustice whatever the costs and
consequences. Greatness gives life and seeds greatness in others. Greatness
is committed, bears indignity, cost, sacrifice, and pain. It knows no bounds. It is
both pure and humble. It celebrates its own flaws and imperfections with nobility
and honor. It laughs, heals, and forgives. Greatness trusts. Greatness
empowers.

In contrast power is self-serving, self-seeking, controlling, domineering, and

manipulating. It seeks self-gratification and glory at all costs. Power exhumes a
personal and hidden agenda and represents pride masked as a false sense of
security and superiority. It seeks to drain the life out of those who serve it, it
condemns, it betrays, it rejects, and it accuses. It is shame, it is deceit, and it
feeds upon injustice. Power brings destruction.

Leaders who empower have three categories of strengths: self-mastery, action,

and relationships.

Self – Mastery Strength

 Know your mission and stay focused. Own it! Create a passion for the
mission and share that passion with others on the team. Do not get caught
up in everyday trivia, beliefs, or distractions that have no real purpose or
meaning to the overall goal or success of the mission.
 Remain in the spirit of truth: honesty and integrity. Empowering leaders
honor their commitments: they are a person of their word. They can be
trusted and that trust will endure and transcend all hostility. Empowering
leaders command and give empowerment and respect freely.
 Accomplish all things, difficult and small. The mark of a true leader is that
they are willing to stand alone. Empowering leaders have both vision and
communications skills. They are driven instinctively to do the right and honest
thing. They command and expect noble things. Empowered leaders and
empowered staff see love in control of the plan; they are not easily offended
nor do they take offense – they know who they are and that they are
empowered. They are mentally able to accept and to integrate injustice as a
part of the larger plan. They know things are neither good nor bad; all things
are part of the plan. Empowered individuals have a sense of destiny.
 Believe that you can and “suggest” the idea to your staff in such a way that
they believe it is their idea. Exercise gratitude often and freely with your staff,
even if they seem to fall short of your expectations. Celebrate all victories,
acknowledge the efforts. Holding your staff accountable and responsible
reflects that you trust their choices and respect their decisions. Communicate
the mission, vision, goals as well as individual roles, responsibilities, and
accountability in a respectful spirit of honesty, integrity, and trust.
 Empowering leaders take risks. It is a test of courage to both trust and to
take risks. Without courage, action is turned into complacency. Empowered
people work their fears with bold courage and affirmation. They do not focus
on the fears or allow the fears to distract them. Fears become salvation.
 Empowered individuals have an awareness of their resources and they can
create what they need out of the resources and energy available. They
possess a deep understanding of the “physics of faith”. Empowered leaders
know the talents and skills of their staff. Empowered individuals test their own
limitations and challenge themselves to move beyond – they can take an
interest and turn it into a talent or skill.

Strength of Action
 Empowered individuals recognize that everything is alive and this gives them
both confidence and comfort. Empowered individuals take action, they
delegated because they can trust not only in the plan but in their decision to
delegate and in the individuals to whom delegation is made. They know how
and when to let it go and they can rise above controversy, pettiness, gossip,
power encounters and struggles, arguments, or ego. They have learned to
listen and to proceed as planned by maintaining their confidence and
perspective. They are blessings to all they encounter.
 Simplify. Empowered individuals keep it simple; they understand core values
and they identify, articulate, and summarize to motivate others by boiling
down concepts to an understandable idea or message. They do not need to
talk over the heads of team members. Messages lose momentum with over-
analysis.
 Empowered leaders are action oriented – they take it one step at a time.
They share of themselves and their own talents and gifts freely. They treat
others as the treasure of their own hearts. Empower leaders change the units
used to measure success to more than monetary rewards. They challenge
cultural clichés, shift paradigms, demonstrate gratitude spontaneously and
regularly, and they realize even the least among the many is important. They
are turn around specialists – they can take any setback and turn it into a
learning experience.
 Procrastination and inactivity paralyzes the mission. Empowered leaders are
not “above” completing the small tasks and will not delegate something they
would not do themselves. They have a motto “WOWSE: with or without
someone else”.
 Empowered leaders create teams and “charge” members with the same
authority and action that they have. They know that it does not take large
numbers to be successful, only a unified effort. Leaders direct resources and
concentrate their efforts on success. Recruiting helps with the tasks and
broadens the perspective of what can be done. They are secure and train
their own replacements. A key ingredient in empowering leadership is
maturity to ask “why not me?” Empowered individuals “press on” to the
victory, are unified by purpose, and resources are in agreement and
alignment with the goals to perform the work at hand which accomplishes the
 deed. They can recite the mission, vision, and goals – they are a part of the
victory and the purpose. Empowered individuals are committed and no one
can steal their joy or ruin their day.
 Empowered leaders know that they risk exposure of the truth of their own
hearts when assigning authority and action. Vulnerability empowers leaders
to face their own truths. Empowering leaders dare to be different, they see
things differently, they carry a fresh perspective with passion and clarity, and
they can come from any rank, culture, or background. They boldly and freely
empower staff without asking for permission. Their authority is assumed; it is
blossomed and nurtured from within.
 Empowering leaders are visible. They use empowering and innovative
strategies to get their messages across and the mission accomplished. They
know they are not alone; they have a sense of eternal companionship that
gives them purpose and meaning which creates a sense of internal peace
and harmony.

Strength of Relationships
 Empowered leaders set an example and know how and to whom to give
thanks. They acknowledge even the smallest of contributions publicly and
privately giving praise freely and they give special attention to those who
often seem to be set aside. This motivates everyone within a team.
Empowering leaders don’t just create teams; they inspire, encourage, excite,
and extend an invitation to commit freely without waiting to negotiate a
response. They are not afraid of silence. Empowered individuals share a
purpose and meaning with all team members.
 Empowering leaders practice the “ripple effect” management style. They
practice public relations both internally and externally and include the staff
during the planning process. Team training helps individuals share
experiences which creating team cohesion by seeding and nurturing
empathy, compassion, and understanding. People will work and longer when
they understand the significance of their contributions. Change comes from
the inside. Individuals become dedicated not only to the mission but to the
success of the team. Empowered team members hold each other
accountable to accomplish tasks. Success breeds confidence and success.
Empowered individuals are often at the end of themselves, they are willing to
risk all for the sake of finding something betters knowing the only guarantees
are they ones they give to the mission. They know the benefits and are
willing to pay the price.
 Empowered leaders know and serve their staff members with dedication and
they convey unity in their eye contact when communicating with them. True
service inspires service which equals meltdown – it opens the heart of
individuals creating a bond that exceeds the here and now. They spend time
in meaningful conversations which allows them to “touch” the fragile areas of
their lives and souls. They notice the little things that make someone great
and extend compassion. This helps individuals grow in mutual respect, unity,
and cohesion. How you perceive someone (and how they perceive you) lives
 in how you view them and “see” them during eye contact. True leaders
defend their staff willfully and diligently granting authority with instruction on
how to use the authority allowing them also to impart empowerment freely.
 Empowered leaders know that a title after names establishes boundaries and
limitations. Empowered leaders know that everyone is unique and therefore
important and equal in the success of the mission. Respect empowers.
When accepted, people will perform. Empowered leaders look at talents,
gifts, and potential and help individuals discover their own greatness and to
test their own boundaries and limitations. They educate individuals and in
return become educated. Empowerment is not gender biased or cultural; it is
ethical and critical for the success of individual contribution and the overall
success of the project or mission. Empowered individuals believe in the
talents, gifts, and efforts of team members and that they will produce an
extraordinary greatness. Inner knowledge and strength is authority and those
who know themselves will rise to an occasion of greatness not for their own
recognition, but for the purpose of the mission.
 Empowered leaders say “yes” to opportunity and to ideas, “yes” to success,
and “yes” to empowering individuals to go forth. Empowered leaders and
individuals listen, they do not have individual agendas; their motives are
transparent and obvious. Honesty and integrity motivates, creates unity, and
loyalty. They create a person ownership of the task, of the mission, and of
the purpose. Empowered individuals know how to forgive and to keep on
believing. Forgiveness creates a forward momentum.
 Empowered leaders convey good will, good nature, and good humor. They
balance stress with humor and laugh often, loving much. They impart
wonderful memories and want to take everyone with them to the top. They
see their staff as gifts and rewards and their own greatest accomplishments.
Empowered individuals love to the very end.

Empowerment is relationship grounded. We experience empowerment when we

serve the needs of others or the greater whole, when our understanding and
compassion extends beyond cultural biases and personal prejudices, when our
level of maturity grows greater than our need to be right or to win, when we hold
ourselves accountable and responsible for how we view outcome of any given
situation, and when we can accept and grow from adversity while respecting the
experience of the relationship as a separate entity from the actual person.

People are not their actions and it is important to view relationships with a higher
level of importance than a persons accomplishments. Agree to disagree, agree
that all events, policies, procedures, thoughts, etc. can be improved upon and
that we must accept the events while respecting all individuals.

To be empowered means that you risk rejection, extend yourself beyond your
former boundaries, expend yourself to surpass all limitations, and that setbacks
are opportunities for growth and exposure and are the foundation for planning.