Manager wants to be empowered during pandemic

I work as a department manager for a small enterprise owned by a Chinese family. I’ve been on the job for more than 10 years. I’ve read many articles on employee empowerment from you, but it appears that I missed the one on how a manager like me can enjoy greater empowerment from top management. Many times, I feel disappointed that our CEO won’t not even trust me to sign off on disbursements as small as P500 even though we have the budget. Even approving vacation leave of my own workers, which I believe is petty and administrative, needs the CEO’s approval. How do I convince the CEO to empower me with real management authority? — Bad Dream

It isn’t how you can be trusted, but why can’t you be trusted? Look at the bee that is often praised and the fly that is often swatted. They are two different pesky insects but they contribute differently to mankind. Depending on the circumstances, becoming empowered can be one of the most disappointing experiences or one of the biggest gifts in your work life.

So brace yourself. It’s not easy to convince a boss who is used to command and control, which to my mind is an obsolete management approach. Nobody likes to work for a helicopter boss or a micromanager. Nobody wants to be closely supervised. Many times, people like you have no choice but to accept their terrible situation.

That doesn’t mean giving up without doing anything to improve your situation. Along these lines, you have to demonstrate your willingness to take on greater responsibility. Rising to the challenge of big, highly visible projects will help establish your credibility and competence. This means moving away from small, mundane tasks, given the fact that you’ve served that company for 10 years.

If you’ve established yourself as a consistent high-achiever, it would be easy for you to be empowered at least by understanding the advantages of decentralization and levels of authority, among other basic management principles.

CONVINCING THE BOSS
There are many ways to convince the CEO to empower you in certain managerial tasks. You must demonstrate that you’re competent and loyal at the same time. However, this means taking reasonable risks from time to time. Some of these may involve reaching out to build an extra-ordinary professional relationship with your CEO, your colleagues and your workers. To do just that, you can explore the following approaches:

One, establish a decentralization strategy for all managers. Don’t focus on your own situation, but your proposal must cover all similarly-situated managers. That way, it would be easy for the CEO to accept your idea as long as it benefits the organization. The advantages of a decentralized organization include business continuity, efficiency, and higher productivity. It also includes unburdening the CEO with details that could have been done by other managers.

Before putting forward such proposal, discuss the issue with a friendly department manager or some other sympathetic colleague and ask their opinion. While decentralization generally favors managers, some may not like the idea as they believe it might result in additional burdens.

Second, define levels of management authority and responsibility. This is related to decentralization. When you decentralize, see to it that you include the limits of authority given to departments and the extent of their signing authority. This is normally depicted as a pyramid-like structure with top management as the apex.

Next in line is middle management with limited authority depending on the transaction size. For instance, in the absence or incapacity of the CEO, any two or three department managers may be given the responsibility to sign on his behalf. This can be further improved by allowing individual managers to make independent decisions pertaining to their departments.

At the bottom of the pyramid is non-management. They may be seen as without any authority or responsibility but should be encouraged to suggest ideas or programs in the interest of work efficiency, among others.

Last, train and be ready to assume bigger responsibility. For many family corporations, this may not be possible in the presence of family members who are given undue advantage over professional managers. But who knows? The world is round and anything is possible if you have a positive mind-set. There’s no guarantee that you will be given that chance, but it is not a good reason to throw away any opportunity to take that chance.

Whatever happens, such training (or experience) depending on how you see it can give you enough confidence when you decide to move to other organizations whose top management is willing to empower you.

REVIEWING OPTIONS
When you lack decent managerial authority, you have to approach it as systematically as possible. This is true whether you’re directly involved or just observing the situation. In either case, you need to realize that many of these situations are tricky and could even backfire. Therefore, you have to review your options.

Ask yourself: What are my choices if I’m not happy with my job? Should I ignore or confront the situation particularly during the pandemic, which is causing a lot of businesses to close, if not reduce their head count? You can pretend the situation is not as bad as you think it is. Another possibility is to monitor the situation. Instead of dismissing it or taking action immediately, you could wait and see how it unfolds.

For example, if perpetually waiting for the CEO’s signature has proved to be disastrous, document what you’ve witnessed and take it as opportunity to remind your boss about empowerment. If he continues to ignore you then decide whether moving on to another employer is a good move. If empowerment is important for you as a manager, then make it happen.

Send anonymous questions to elbonomics@gmail.com or via https://reyelbo.consulting.