Building Leaders Through Empowerment
This episode is the start of something special. Phil Gaines, retired Director of South Carolina State Parks, is going to be a semi-regular guest co-host on the Park Leaders Show. When parks lose a long-time leader like Phil, we lose so much knowledge and experience. By finding new ways to continue to bring past experiences into the work up and coming leaders are doing, we can continue to build the legacy of parks. Empowerment is an overused phrase and an underused practice. Leaders naturally want to have their hand in everything that happens. It is hard to let go and let other people do work that may impact your reputation. True empowerment is having front-line employees with the confidence and authority to make decisions. In order to empower employees, you have to be comfortable and confident in your vision. In this episode, we discuss what empowerment really is and why you need to adopt the idea to become a leader. We also give insight into how to begin to pass some of your responsibility and authority to employees.