Assignment:
Using Leadership to Empower Others
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. - John Quincy Adams (as cited by Josephson, 2012).
While most of us don't have the world as our stage, it is also important to remember that even history's greatest leaders were at that same point in their lives. Neither King nor Gandhi weren't born to families on the world stage, they became world class leaders by their actions, nor how those actions inspired others. As individuals, they accomplished much. As leaders, they inspired first thousands, then millions in their day. And more important still, they inspire people today. That is the best form of the leveraging of influence, when you inspire people even after you are dead.
As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others. - Bill Gates (as cited by Meier, 2011).
Leaders of successful companies are looking for employees who want to be part of the bigger picture, who want to bring their skills and talents to the work place and know they are making a difference. These leaders are looking for more than employees; they are looking for people who see themselves as partners in creating something that will make a difference in the world.
Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others. - Jack Welch (as cited by Lowe, 2008, p. 88).
By focusing on the people served, and not being self-serving, someone can quickly grow in leadership, though his/her formal title may not change.
An empowered organization is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organizational success. - Stephen Covey (Covey, 1991, p. 212).
An empowered organization is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organizational success. Every human has four endowments- self-awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom. The power to choose, to respond, to change.