The term empowerment as it implies should ideally give those in the position of exercise the trait the freedom to do so without any restriction that would cause them to shy away from doing so. The empowerment tool is very effective when used especially if decision making is a prime and important focus of the project undertaken
Strength
Most companies recognize today that the decision making is not and should not be left only to those higher in the hierarchy of the company or team.
Today the effectiveness of any team will be measured against its ability to make fast, decisive and project benefiting decisions without too much procedural red tape to consider.
This empowerment element will give those contributing to the decision making process a sense of worth and accountability which in turn will create the focus needed to successfully see the project to completion.
This fundamental power shift is what is going to ensure that the project does not stall or get derailed simply because the decision making part of it was not sufficiently addressed from the very onset of the project and team building exercise.
When each individual involved in the team working on a project, is given the opportunity to make decisions and understands that the decision making is to be shared and accountability is expected for the decisions made, the general workings of the whole process will be much easier and timelines can easily be met.
When there is a clear perception and acceptance of power for each contributing team member the actual degree and scope of the said power should be clearly defined so as not to cause any “power struggles” within the team.
The oversight of this would cause many negative effects. Another important point that should be seriously considered in the team building exercise is that it should provide the skills, knowledge and guidelines so that the empowerment element will be positively exercised always.